


The Mark of Merlin

by j_michelle



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Lymond Chronicles - Dorothy Dunnett
Genre: Azkaban, Family Secrets, Gen, Northern Irish Troubles, Slytherin, St Mungo's Hospital, Stealth Crossover, Wizarding Wars (Harry Potter)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-03
Updated: 2019-09-04
Packaged: 2020-10-06 16:51:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 21,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20510318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/j_michelle/pseuds/j_michelle
Summary: Two sisters, separated by life and blood status navigate troubled wizarding and muggle worlds, as new evils and old conflicts emerge to draw them into wars they have no desire to fight.- note -This is an old start to a story I've had sitting around on my computer for a while, that I may finish some day. It has an outline, and a hazy conclusion. This IS also a fanfic of the Lymond Chronicles, but all aspects from that story will be explained. I don't expect most HP readers to know that story. The characters in this story are distant descendants of certain Lymond characters.





	1. The Beginning

The castle’s dungeon passages were well lit with enchanted ever-burning torches, but they never seemed to shake off a certain gloom, accentuated further by the freshly risen June sun outside that was turning the walls and towers far above to a sort of dull gold. 

But for Cassandra Alice of the pure and ancient house of Crawford, the old damp, stone walls held a familiar, reassuring solidness that she’d come to appreciate, especially this morning. Quite suddenly, she found that she was going to miss these damp passages she’d walked for seven years. They were so different from the place she’d been taught to call home. 

The historic Crawford manor house at St. Mary’s Loch had been renovated years ago to adhere to the pristine lines and perfect corners and spotless floors that her grandparents and great-grandparents demanded of every aspect of their lives. In contrast, the foundations and walls of Hogwarts were uneven, rambling, and rough like the roots and branches of a living tree. They seemed to almost breath with a sense of its own age and history. Secret passages seemed to grow up through the castle, and doors and stairs shifted and slid away. The people in the portraits talked and laughed and often cracked rude jokes. They were friendly or openly aggressive – as in the case with the funny little knight and his pony.

She stopped at a door at the end of the passage and knocked. The voice that called for her to enter was sour, and she pushed open the door a bit hesitantly.

She knew the office well, having spent so many hours out of class here, in private tutoring sessions. The walls were lined with potion ingredients and potions in perfect alphabetical order. If she didn’t already know what they were, she could have named most of them and their properties by sight, after her hours of study, in and out of class with her professor. He was sitting at his desk, a stack of exams before him. His black eyes glittered in the torchlight, and his mouth was pinched in a thin line of distase. 

Seeing her, his expression relaxed somewhat, nodded toward a chair facing his desk, and set down the exam in his hand.

“Do you need something, Miss Crawford?”

She slid into the chair. She’d meant to ask about the rumor she’d heard from a Ravenclaw prefect, but now, facing his inscrutable piercing gaze, she was suddenly questioning her choice to drop her toast and come down here straight away.

“Yes – sir.” She started, her voice poised and calm. The wild fear that had leaped up at the lurid story Matilda had whispered to her in passing was now safely locked and bolted deep inside, but a little voice at the back of her mind worried that if she asked Professor Snape about it, it just might break back out.

“I was wondering – have you been able to finish my reference letter, yet?”

He raised one dark eyebrow, his eyes never leaving hers, and she felt a little of the worry slip out. 

“Because,” she fumbled on, “I know – well, St. Mungo’s gets so many applicants.”

He continued to stare at her, until she ground to a halt, and the worry began to twist her stomach now into a painful knot. His mouth twisted in a sour look of exaggerated patience as he obviously waited for her to finally ask the real question.

“Professor,” she finally blurted, her voice actually shaking. “I heard – from Matilda –” She bit her lip nervously, and her voice dropped to a hoarse whisper. “The – the Dark Lord was – here. Was  _ back _ .”

She dropped her gaze to one of the exams on his desk, fighting for control – wrestling this unexpected outburst of emotion back where it belonged, safe and secure. It was from his first-year class, and poor …. Neville Longbottom’s work was already covered by Professor Snape’s small, cramped notes. The silence dragged on. The silly boy had confused liverwort with newt's eyes. Which was impressive, as they not only looked nothing alike, sounded nothing alike, and acted in completely different ways. 

She finally met his eyes again, calmed with the thoughts of potion ingredients and a little humorous pity for the boy. 

His mouth was a narrow line. “This is not a matter for school discussion. I can assure you that  _ he _ is  _ not _ back. He – some part of the Dark Lord – was using Professor Quirrell to steal an artifact that was hidden here at the school. But he was stopped and is gone. Quirrell is dead. That is all you need to know.”

She smiled, relief flooding out any lingering worry. “Thank you, Professor.”

He nodded. “I will thank you to help the teachers prevent wild stories from traveling further through the school.”

“Of course sir.”

As a prefect, supporting the teachers was definitely part of her responsibilities.

“Thank you,” he said. His crisp voice communicated that subject was closed, and he’d answer no more questions. He straightened. “As it is, I have completed the recommendation letter, and it is now on the headmaster's desk, as he’s graciously agreed to add a postscript of his own. Right now, as you can imagine, Professor Dumbledore is quite preoccupied, but I assure you, he will make sure to send it on before the end of term.”

Cassandra grinned. “Oh, thank you!”

Professor Snape’s mouth curled into something like a smile. “You’ve worked harder than the rest of my N.E.W.T. classes combined on Potions, and your effort to master spell theory over the last two years is impressive. Professor Dumbledore agrees with me that, if you are willing to  _ maintain _ this level of dedication at St. Mungo’s, you will make a quite decent healer.” He picked up the exam and his face returned to the sour pinch he’d worn when she’d entered. “Good day, miss Crawford.”

It was the most glowing praise she’d ever heard from her mentor, and understanding the dismissal, she practically floated out of his office and back up the stairs to the great hall where wild rumors were flying about in hissed whispers. She immediately started to work her way down the Slytherin table, correcting insane theories, but offering no new information. 

The next few days were filled with June sunshine and flying rumors. Eventually, the student body seemed to land on an account of what happened that went something like three Gryffindor first-years, one of whom being Boy Who Lived Harry Potter, fought their way through a series of protections the teachers had put in place to guard the famed Philosopher’s Stone – the creation of Nicolas Flamel – to protect the stone from Professor Quirinus Quirrell, who’d tried to steal it, in some way under the influence of He Who Must Not Be Named. Potter had fought him and protected the stone until Professor Dumbledore was able to come to his rescue. Quirrell died in the fight, and Potter was recovering in the hospital wing.

In the middle of it all, Cassandra was still busy, sitting for her final three brutal tests between her and the five Os or Es she needed for St. Mungo’s to take her on as a trainee. Without those grades, all the letters in the world from Professor Snape and Professor Dumbledore would mean squat.

Unlike her O.W.L.s, which she’d taken with her whole class, each N.E.W.T. student was assigned an individual appointment for each subject with the Ministry testers throughout exam week. For Potions, the tests had started even earlier, as the four major N.E.W.T. potions take a month or longer to brew, so the testers observed her as she started them, then they were placed in a locked cabinet that they could only access under Professor Snape’s observation. Finally, during exam week, the potions were brought back out, and the testers observed any final ingredients. It was a stressful month as they watched their potions turn the correct colors and reach the right markers along the way.

During her final appointment with the potions testors, Cassandra was asked to brew a fifth potion, as drawn from a bag, from start to finish along with completing the four big ones. It had been a grueling five hours on Tuesday, but as she filled a vial of each before the two slightest observers, she’d felt a decided sense of relief verging on euphoria, as each looked and smelled perfect. They took them, and before her watching eyes, magically sealed them with her name now glowing across their labels.

She had to admit to being disappointed that there had been no way she’d been able to sneak any of the potions – except for her Amortentia. The concept of love potions had always made her feel a little queasy. She’d been reminded of her dad’s flippant confession to using it to control her mum too many times to ever chose to go near the stuff. 

But to have even a few drops of Felix Felicis –  _ that _ would have been lovely.

Her Defense Against the Dark Arts test was held Wednesday after dinner – just hours before the stone fiasco. In their private sessions since her fifth year when she’d decided she wanted to become a healer, Professor Snape had taught her to sense and understand the magic behind curses and hexes. Stopping, blocking, and healing from them was not a matter of a book of magical remedies that a silly housewife could buy and place on her shelf, he’d told her in his quiet, cold voice in their first session that year. It’s an ever-changing, ever-mutating creature that must be understood, that must be known, that must be respected, to be defeated – that was why DADA was a required N.E.W.T. for healers, after all. Even if most never thought about the class again, he’d added snidely. 

“You have to understand curses and hexes – yes, miss Crawford, even the Dark Arts – to know what drives them and makes them work – if you have  _ any _ ambition to be anything more than a hack at St. Mungo’s and spend your days repairing wizards who stupidly tried to make their own Flu Powder or to magic off acne, or splinched themselves.”

Wide eyed and a little pale, she’d nodded.

Dark Arts had certainly been floating around Slytherin house for years – it was something everyone liked to pretend to know all about, but then, when it came to it, most of them were as clueless as the most good-natured Hufflepuff. But to actually have Professor Snape basicly offer to teach her not just the Dark Arts, but how they worked – it was a whole new, terrifying and exhilarating prospect. He’d made her swear to not share what she was learning with her classmates. To not tell anything, and just say she was taking extra classes in Potions, if it came to that. To prepare for her O.W.L. so she’d get high enough marks to take it in N.E.W.T. level.

And so, as she’d listen to the boasting about what a classmate could do, she’d smile and go back to reading, completely aware that the little second-year didn’t have a clue.

The final three tests – Transfiguration, Charms, and Herbology, after Professor Snape’s training, had gone smoothly enough. Transfiguration and Charms worked the same way the Dark Arts did, and understanding one allowed her to easily grasp the light concepts of the other two subjects.

Herbology, being such an important aspect of Potions, had been the last and easiest of all, and on Friday afternoon, she left the greenhouse and blinked in the afternoon sun, suddenly realizing that it was over.

She glanced around the grounds. Students sat and talked or chased each other around, all done with their exams as well. But they’d all be back for another year in September. When she boarded the train for King’s Cross, it would be over. 

No, it would be just beginning. 

She grinned, and some of the melancholy slipped away. It was time. She was an adult. She’d be training at St. Mungo’s in a month or so, once her N.E.W.T. results came through. And she was going to find her sister.


	2. The Letter

The letter arrived in the little mail cubby, along with three bills and a postcard from Brid’s friend in America.

Isobel Katherine Crawford hiked back up the three flights of creaking stairs to the dingy little flat where she lived with her aunt Brid. The thin and musty walls did little to block out the busy noise of Belfast constantly rushing somewhere important.

Isobel could take the steps two at a time now, after her legs seemed to have doubled in length in the last year, rendering her the tallest girl in her class, but to her dismay, none of her old coordination seemed to have kept up with the growth in her gangly appendages. Brid said it was called adolescence, and eventually, she’d be “willowy” like her mother, Fiona, had been. 

Frankly, Isobel was a bit dubious about this adolescence thing so far, with her stubbornly flat chest and long, stringy brown hair that she doubted would ever frame her face the way Brid’s did. Brid’s hair was auburn and fluffy with just the right about of curl. The way she tied it back with a colorful scarf made it perfectly frame her face. Along with her bold lipstick and bright eyeliner, her pretty young aunt looked just like the magazines, in Isobel’s opinion, no matter how much Brid fussed about her looks to the mirror.

The only part of herself that Isobel liked was her vivid blue eyes. Brid said they looked just like Isobel’s dad’s eyes. So sometimes, when she was alone, she’d look at them in the mirror and pretend her dad was looking out at her. Sometimes, she’d pretend to tell him things, like about her day at school. Isobel told Brid practically everything, but this little secret, she’d kept to herself.

Isobel was panting by the time she reached their floor, and huffing, she shoved the battered door open and stepped into the little kitchen.

Bridget Marie Callaghan glanced up from behind her pile of work on the table. Brid was taking a class at the local Uni again. This time – she’d insisted – she’d get her legal aid certificate. 

She seemed to notice the parchment envelope in Isobel’s hands even before she’d dropped the mail onto the table. Addressed with a flourish to “Miss Isobel Katherine Crawford” and sealed with bright red wax, it had no postage and looked so different from the mundane bits of mail it came with.

Brid’s eyes, accentuated by blue makeup today, opened wide with excitement. “So open it!”

Isobel flashed a half-hearted grin at her and broke the seal. 

Brid had talked about this all year, but Isobel had always had a sort of sinking feeling whenever Brid told her about dropping her older sister off at King’s Cross and only seeing her for holidays, when she’d come home with exciting magical treats and wild stories. It was fine for Brid, she’d thought. She wasn’t the one who’d have to step onto a train filled with strangers and ride off into a foreign world. A world that had eventually taken her mum’s life, stolen her dad, and, if she could believe Brid, separated her from a half-sister. In all, it sounded like a very mixed bag. 

Other times, she decided that her aunt was just crazy, or having her on, and her stories were all nonsense lies she’d made up so she wouldn't have tell the truth that her mum had abandoned her and was living on the streets somewhere, or had died of a drug overdose. That was what the kids at school theorized when she told them her mum was dead and she didn’t know what had happened to her dad.

But then, Penelope  _ had  _ developed a uniquely bad case of acne after ragging on Isobel’s missing dad last year. And other strange things seemed to happen around Isobel from time to time, especially when she was worked up.

Now, in her hand was physical evidence. It came with a list of books and supplies, like any other school. She frowned. 

“We can’t afford this.”

“I’ll decide that,” Brid snapped back fiercely, daring Isobel to offer further protest.

“But where do we  _ get _ this stuff?”

“In London – I went there once with Fiona.”

“London – that’s – that’s so far away!”

“Well, you have to go to London anyway, to board the train.” Brid picked up a ticket that had fallen out of the envelope. “I asked Fiona once why she rode the train when she could do magic, and she’d said it was the rule – all students have to use the train to get to Hogwarts.”

“So how will we get to London?”

Brid grinned. “We’ll take the train, of course. I think Emmet might go with us if I asked.”

Emmet O'Dwyer was the latest in a string of boyfriends Bird seemed to find, then move on from. Personally, Isobel hopped Emmet might last. He had sandy hair that curled right from the roots, his round cheeks had deep dimples whenever he grinned, which was most of the time, and his nose was covered with freckles.

Isobel had even tried out Brid’s name with his – Bridget O’Dwyer – and decided she liked the sound. 

As it turned out, Emmet had business in Manchester, and would travel with them as far as the ferry. Once on English soil, they parted ways. Emmet didn’t know about magic, and they’d concocted a story about Isobel earning a scholarship to prestigious private school in England that she was headed for.

He’d whooped and told her she’d be great and would probably be prime minister someday, or something. Then his face had clouded and actually looked serious. He made a comment about how she might even be part of history and uniting Ireland. The unusual mood hung onto him for precisely three minutes, at which point, the train gave two piercing hoots and pulled into the station. His grin returned and he lifted all their bags and dragged them onto the train, shouting over the noise that they were off on an adventure. He leaned down and asked Isobel in a mock whisper if she’d remembered her pocket handkerchief, then laughed at her confused expression as she’d answered in the affirmative.

Isobel was sorry to part with Emmet once they’d reached England. He’d kept them laughing the whole way, but Brid seemed even more reluctant, and they’d hugged very tightly. He whispered in her ear, and she in his, and to Isobel’s giggling joy, he’d bent his neck and kissed her aunt. Right on the mouth.

And then they were on their own. Brid had been sort of flustered and giggly herself for a bit after that and refused to mention it at all for the first few hours. Finally, when she’d calmed down a bit, she told Isobel that Emmet had invited them to spend Christmas holidays with him in Manchester, if he was still there in December. 

“And assuming my boss at the shop gives me the time off. It is a really busy time.”

“If he’s looking to be there that long, maybe you could get a job in Manchester too,” Isobel suggested, at which point Brid blushed and hid behind a fashion magazine.

In London, they’d found the Leaky Cauldron with difficulty – Brid told Isobel exactly what to look for, figuring she might see it first, having witch eyes, even though Brid had actually been there before. In the end, they found it at the same time, and stepping closer together, they entered.

Inside, it was a different world. Strange people bustled around her dressed in robes that were a riot of color. Pointed hats brushed under rafters, and loud chatter rose from the tables, as people used words she’d never heard before, but still seemed to speaking English.

Brid seemed equally transfixed by the strange sights and sound, and very lost.

It was the old man behind the bar who greeted them and asked how he could help them. Brid nodded down at Isobel. 

“Hullo, I’m Bridget Callaghan, and this is my niece, Isobel.” Brid was lapsing into the awkward girlish babble she started when she was nervous and unsure of herself. Her Irish accent always became pronounced when she did. “She’s starting at Hogwarts and needs to get her school things – and I’m not – I don’t have any magic, see, so I need something to show me how to get into Dag-whatsitcalled Alley – if you please?”

He glanced down at Isobel, a lopsided grin splitting his face. “Muggleborn is she then?” He asked, his voice chatty. “Always a bit of adjustment – poor dears.”

Brid grinned back, and Isobel could feel her relaxing beside her. “Oh, no, not her. Her parents were both wizards – well, her dad was. Her mum was a witch, I mean.”

The barman steered them out the back door. “Dead then? So sorry to hear it,” he clucked his tongue in sympathy.

Brid frowned, thinking. “Well,” she started. “Her mum – my sister – she’s dead. But I don’t fully understand what became of her dad.”

The bartender tapped a brick and out of nowhere, the wall folded itself back to form an archway. Isobel was so surprised she jumped back with a little gasp. Brid broke off from her rambling and laughed at Isobel’s reaction.

“Have a good day, dears,” the bartender called after them, and Brid lead her into through into the overwhelming sights, smells, and rush of the wizarding world.

Brid wrapped her hand around her purse, and they pushed into the crowd, heading for the bank to change money. It was one shock after another. 

“Goblins,” Brid whispered in a voice that was just a little wavery as Isobel had another shock at the people behind the desks. One of them noticed, and glowered at her.

Then, they were back out in the street. Brid, a hand firmly on Isobel’s wrist, so as not to lose her in the crowd, pushed purposefully between people. She’d asked a witch at the bank which shops sold the things Isobel needed, and now they tramped from one to the next, each with their own wonders: Used robes. A cauldron. Scales. The wand shop where Brid laid down several gold coins and introduced herself and Isobel to the strange little wizard who bent down to peer into her eyes, an odd, calculating look in his eyes.

“Hullo, Isobel Crawford,” he said. “Let’s get your measurements then.” 

To Isobel’s continued amazement, a measuring strip lifted itself from his desk and began checking all sorts of lengths on her body. She watched it, cross-eyed, as it checked the width of her nose.

Meanwhile, the little man slid several boxes from his shelves and placed them on the desk. With a wave, the strip rolled itself back up, and dropped back to its resting place beside a number of quills and some sheets of parchment.

He opened one and drew out a light colored wand and placed it in her hand, and told her to try a wave. Nothing happened, and it sat in her hand like any other stick, be it a carefully carved and polished stick. 

“Hum. Try this one,” he said, holding out another. “Blackthorn with dragon heartstring. 13 inches.”

He placed the polished wooden handle in her hand. 

Isobel’s eyes widened as something deep inside her jumped, and seemed to be answered by that length of wood. A stream of sparkles followed the tip as it moved through the air. For the first moment of her life, she really did believe that she could do magic.

The little man smiled back at her. “I wondered. That's a powerful wand, once it bonds with you.” He frowned, and didn't offer any further information about what that process might be. “Same sort of wand as your father – actually,” he added in an offhand way. 

Isobel glanced up, the wand forgotten. “You knew him?”

He nodded at the wand in her hand. “I never forget a wand, my dear. I do remember the day his parents brought him in here – getting his things – before his first year at Hogwarts.” That strange look filled his eyes again. “They say your father did some amazing magic with his own. And then there was your sister. She too was fitted with a wand I'm normally most reluctant to place in such young hands.”

“– my sister?” She blurted, interrupting his verbal meanderings. 

Isobel was bursting to ask more, but Brid pulled her on to the next stop. The sign announced this was Flourish & Blots. Below that, a horribly purple banner advertised a book signing by a wizard who flashed his very white teeth in a moving picture beside the name Lockhart.

A  _ moving _ picture. 

But Brid pulled her on, passed the crowd of middle aged women in pointed hats queuing up to meet Mr. Toothy Grin. Brid rolled her eyes and snorted as a scuffle broke out between two of them.

“I’m sure he’s a big-headed git,” she whispered into Isobel’s ear. Isobel snickered in agreement. They split up to find the long list of books, after Brid groaned, noticing the author’s name on a good number of required books. “No wonder he’s here today – watch you all buying his complete library. Now I really hate him – bloody swindler.”

She stormed off as Isobel giggled, then began to explore the extraordinary place. Books were stacked along walls, they filed the shelves and boxes and piles of books filled half the walking places in the aisles. A winding staircase up to a second story was equally filled with books. And the titles. Household remedies for nome infestations, theories of unicorne treatment, and biographies of Pallula the Weird.

As she wandered through a whole section of Miranda Goshawk’s Standard Books of Spells books, a small, belligerent voice invaded her thoughts.

“You look like someone I know.”

She turned around and saw a narrow platinum-blond boy who was about her height staring at her. His face seemed permanently pinched into a scowl. She arched her eyebrows frostily. “Who are you?”

He continued to stare. “What’s your name – I haven’t seen you at Hogwarts.”

She slid a used copy of the Standard Books of Spells, Grade One, from the shelf, and brandished it. “I haven’t  _ been _ to Hogwarts yet,” she’d meant for her voice to sound frosty, like Brid sometimes managed, but it came out more squeaky.

“Of course,” he said, smirking. “ _ My _ names Draco – Draco  _ Malfoy _ .” He emphasised the name with obvious pride, and seemed to expect her to be equally awed. 

She wasn't. It was a stupid name. “Well  _ I’m _ Isobel Crawford.”

He smirked more widely. “That’s what I  _ thought _ .”

She stared at him – he desperately wanted her to ask why, but he was equally bursting with it, so she was going to make him go on without playing his game. 

His grin slipped as she continued to skewer him with her icy blue eyes, and he started talking again. “I know your grandparents – and sister. I heard my dad say once there was another of you, but they shipped you off your  _ muggle  _ side.” That last part was obviously meant to be an insult, and she felt her cheeks flush.

“Of course,” he went on. “That doesn’t stop you from being a  _ Crawford _ , whatever unfortunate blood you get from your mum. And you can leave all that behind, you know. If you stick with the right people. My dad says your dad could have really been something.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Your dad knew my dad?”

Draco smiled almost triumphantly, which did annoy Isobel but this chance to learn something about her dad was trumping her pride.

“Oh, yeah. They were at Hogwarts together,” Draco went on. “In the  _ only _ house worth anything – Slytherin. Only pureblood families belong in that house.” His lip curled distastefully. “ _ And _ half-bloods, if their wizard half is quality.”

Isobel glared at him, not understanding most of the words, but understanding the gist. She didn’t get the talk of muggles and blood, but she did understand social class – hell, she was Irish. She flared with temper and drew herself up, trying to think of something to say, but they were interrupted by a menacing voice.

“It  _ is  _ good to hear how  _ well _ your lot are these days, Malfoy.”

She spun around. A much older boy standing behind her held out a hand. “Kyne Travers.” 

“Isobel Crawford.”

He nodded. “I heard.” 

Draco glared up at Travers, who was curling his lip in distaste as he eyed Draco.

“And I’d hate to compare Gideon Crawford to  _ your  _ respected father,  _ Malfoy _ .” Something about the way he said it made Isobel quite sure he meant something very different. Draco seemed to agree, and two pink spots began to form on his pale cheeks. His eyes narrowed, he opened his mouth, closed it and then stormed away. 

Travers grinned, but his eyes remained cool and calculating. “Don’t let Malfoy get to you – some of us still respect your dad, and trust me – there’s plenty of half bloods in Slytherin house these days.” He turned away. “See you at Hogwarts – Isobel Crawford.”

Isobel stood there, watching him go for several minutes, the Book of Spells still grasped in her hand, forgotten, as her mind spun with what she’d heard. Malfoy. Travers. Slytherin. What was Slytherin? What did that have to do with Hogwarts?

She collected the rest of her books and they were just paying when she heard a commotion from the back, where Lockhart was. People were shouting and things were falling. Brid glanced over her shoulder looking nervous. They quickly paid, and slipped outside again. 


	3. The House of Slytherin

The next day, Brid took her to King’s Cross and showed her how they’d get through the barrier – ”I used to come with mum to drop off Fiona,” she said. 

On the other side, a scarlet steam engine belched masses of steam as parents gave children final hugs and kisses. Some fussed over hair or forgotten items and gave final warnings to obey teachers and study hard.

People dragged heavy trunks to the train, topped with cages filled with hooting owls, and cats flitted from leg to leg, only just avoiding the moving feet and ankles. Students called hullos to friends they hadn’t seen since the end of term, and gathered in clumps to tell all they could about the holidays they had in a rush. 

It was overwhelming, and suddenly Isobel just wanted to grab Brid’s hand and drag her back out to the normal world and go home. Brid seemed to understand, and crouched down to meet her eyes. She pointed at her trunk, that was loaded with her new books they’d flipped through.

“You are going to learn how to do all sorts of things – fly, and turn teacups into goldfinches, and – and things.” She finished lamely, but Isobel was grinning again, at Brid’s attempt at a grand farewell speech.

“I’ll be okay,” she said, with only the barest waver in her voice.

Brid grinned back. “I know you will – we Callaghan women are tough and we kick ass, and we don’t take shite from nobody, right?”

Isobel nodded. “Right.”

They hugged, and then Brid pulled back. “Right. Let’s get this trunk on the train.”

They found a compartment filled only with a funny looking blonde girl wearing an enormous necklace that seemed to be made from radishes. She was hidden behind a magazine with another moving picture on the front. Brid smirked at Isobel, and she smirked back. This compartment would do.

The train took off, and Isobel curled up with one of her books. It was dark when they arrived at the castle, and then climbed into boats which took them right up inside the castle. Then they all lined up under the hawk-like gaze of a witch who called herself Professor Minerva McGonagall. She explained about Hogwarts houses, and all that talk in the bookshop about Slytherin made so much more sense.

Her dad had been in Slytherin, Malfoy had said. 

Then they entered the great hall, and she wanted to gasp. The walls seemed to simply melt into the sky, even though she knew for sure there were loads of castle floors above them. The light came from thousands of floating candles. Along four long tables sat the rest of the students, and at a table on the dais were the teachers. Everyone was watching them expectantly. 

Professor McGonagall placed a very old, battered, dirty hat on a stool, and then it began to sing. It was still a shock, even as she’d been surprised at what magic could do already many times since receiving her letter.

_ “Oh you may not think me pretty, _   
_ But don't judge on what you see, _   
_ I'll eat myself if you can find _ _   
A smarter hat than me….”_

It sang about the houses, and again, she heard her father’s house named.

“_ ...Or perhaps in Slytherin, _   
_ You'll make your real friends, _   
_ Those cunning folk use any means, _ _   
To achieve their ends...."_

They lined up, and Professor McGonagall announced the first name. And the next.

“Crawford, Isobel.”

She could feel the many pairs of eyes burning into her back as she walked forward and sat down. Professor McGonagall placed the hat on her head, and it fell down over her eyes. 

A thoughtful voice filled her head.

_ Hum, yes. Another Crawford. Quick minds and ambition. Your father did well in Slytherin – you could too. _

It seemed to hesitate for a moment, waiting for her to express any opinion. But as Slytherin had been in her mind since her conversion with Malfoy, then Travers, she didn’t have any reason to object. Even if Malfoy looked down on her parentage, from what Travers and this hat said, that was just him. 

“Slytherin!” The hat announced, and the far table swathed in green and silver cheered.

She handed the hat back to Professor McGonagall and walked over to the Slytherin table. A girl slid sideways to make room, and Travers gave her a welcome smile from across the table. Quite a few interested faces turned toward her from up and down the table. Malfoy gave her a haughty nod, then turned to whisper to the two husky boys flanking him on the bench. They laughed stupidly.

The girl beside her offered a hand. “Hulo. My name’s Pansy Parkinson.”

A boy leaned over, grinning. “Blaise Zabini.” 

She took both their hands in turn.

Pansy leaned close. “Is it true you grew up with _ muggles _?”

“Yeah,” she said, her eyes narrowing. “So?”

Pansy looked like she’d said something distasteful, and Isobel glared at her. 

“Well,” Pansy started. “I mean – I just hope you can keep up, is all.” She shrugged. “I mean, they wouldn't have taught you any magic, and your dad, well –.” She left that thought hanging, and turned back to watch the rest of the sorting. 

Isobel decided she didn’t care for Pansy either. 

“Weasley, Ginevra.”

The hat had barely touched the girl’s flaming red hair before it yelled “Gryffindor!”

Down the table, Malfoy made some joke about the Weasley clan, to which the two boys beside him laughed again. Someone beyond Isobel told him it was stupid and to close his little trap. He glared back.

“Just wait,” he hissed. “My dad says changes are coming this year – you lot better make sure you’re on the right side of it.”

One of the older students snorted. “Your dad would know all about that,” he muttered.

Then “Yaxley, Coira” was added to Slytherin.

A slight girl with long blonde hair joined them, and Isobel scooted over with the rest to let her in.

“Hullo,” she said in an Irish accent.

Isobel grinned and introduced herself again.

With Ireland in common, the two girls immediately asked where the other was from, and where they’d visited on holidays. Coira was from County Cork, she said. Her family had an old manor there for generations, she said.

Meanwhile, the Headmaster stood up to introduce a new teacher – Lockhart himself, from the bookstore – and say a few words – “Lemondrop, hoppity, bubbly, clouds.”

And the feast began.

Coira started into a long story about how last week, she’d flown around the family estate on her broom until her dad had caught her and warned her about being seen, and she’d laughed and zoomed away so fast that he’d had to go and shake the dust off his own broom to catch her, but he’d been so focused on her, he’d flown right into a tree and fallen off. She giggled for a few moments before taking a gulp of her pumpkin juice and turning Isobel. “What about you?”

The musty three-room flat in Belfast filled Isobel’s mind. “Well, sometimes, when Brid’s frustrated with her job in the shop, she puts in her favorite records and we dance until the people below us bang on the floor. Well – their ceiling, our floor.” 

It all came out in a rush of good memories, then seeing the blank look on the other girls face, she shut her mouth.

“That sounds so –” Coira cast about for a word. “Muggle,” she finished lamely.

“Well, my aunt is one,” Isobel pointed out stiffly. “My dad – was a wizard. A Crawford.”

She nodded, still looking lost at Isobel’s description of another world. “So – what else did you do for fun?” Coira asked.

The desserts arrived, and Isobel took a moment to answer as she shoveled a currant pudding into her mouth. “I didn’t actually have that much time between school, keeping the flat clean while Brid is working or in class at the Uni. Mostly I made us dinner after school, then I did my homework.”

“_You_ _cook_?” That seemed to be as incredible a revelation as any.

“Someone has to,” she said quite frostily.

“House elves,” Coira responded immediately. “At least, most families. I think.”

It was Isobel's turn to look blank. To fill the awkward silence, she shrugged. “Well, I’m here now – so I bet I’ll find new things.”

A man in long, black robes and long, greasy black hair joined the teachers at the table. 

Travers leaned over. “Meet our Head of House – living posh here for the last 12 years. Severus Snape.”

She wrinkled her forehead – his tone conveyed all sorts of meaning that he obviously expected her to get. “What?”

He looked momentarily annoyed, then shrugged. “Of course your muggles wouldn't know anything about it – talk to me later – I’ll tell you what I can about your dad and – and what happened.”

She took another bite, not tasting it, and nodded.

She’d missed having a dad. Whenever classmates on the school yard made insinuations about him – that he’d abandoned her and her mum – she’d defended him with a vehemence that startled them and her. But she’d never really considered the implications of what Brid remembered about her dad. Having a dad was a theory, not a reality for her. Well, now that world his stories were all linked to was walking and talking. 

And swaggering, as in the case of Malfoy. Down the table, he’d had started on again about his dad and the Ministry and something, something.

Travers was staring at him over the rim of his cup, and, just for a moment, she saw cold malice glittering in his eyes as he nodded toward Malfoy and muttered to the large, ugly boy beside him. “This is all going to bite him on his skinny white arse one day,” he said quietly.

“Even if his daddy’s money _ did _ buy him onto the Quidditch team,” the boy responded with a scowl.

Travers scowled back. “Our new seeker?”

The boy nodded. “The little git showed up first thing and _ informed _ me, brash as you like. Apparently he’s determined he can do better than Potter at whatever Potter does.” 

“And you let him?”

“We need the new brooms – desperately. I asked Professor Snape and he said make him try for it – even if it’s not in question. Think I’ll chose the coldest, darkest, earliest morning possible. Make him suffer for it.”

Travers glanced back down the table and snorted. “It would be a wholly new experience.” He shrugged. “Hell. Maybe he’s halfway decent. We need a Quidditch Cup win after that trick Dumbledore pulled last year.”

The boy glanced her way, holding out a massive hand. “Marcus Flint.”

She took the hand, and offered her name.

He grinned. It went lopsided, and didn’t reach his eyes. “Gideon Crawford’s kid. I know.”

Dinner ended, and one of the girls wearing a prefect badge led her and the rest of the Slytherin first years down to their house, stopping to demonstrate how to get through the wall.

The common room was cool and elegant, but still comfortable and cozy. The lake was directly beyond one glass wall. Crackling fireplaces filled spaces in the other three walls. The emerald green furniture was decorated with silver snakes, and, as they turned, over the entrance hung a painting of Salazar Slytherin.

Once in the common room, the prefect opened with some simple information – the door on one side lead to the boys’ dorm, and the opposite one, the girls. The third lead to study rooms. She explained about passwords and a few more general Hogwarts rules. “You should already find your trunks and things in your dormitory.”

Then Professor Snape swept into the room, and the rest of the house gathered around.

He glanced through the room, his piercing dark eyes glittered from behind his straight, black hair. “Welcome back – welcome to Slytherin, first years. Up until last year, we had six years of House Cup wins.” A few murmurs from the back met that comment, and he glared them silent. “We achieved so much not from a few stars but from a united team. This is Slytherin, ladies and gentlemen. There are a few rules I insist you follow absolutely. I don’t care who you hate, or can’t stand in here. Out there – it’s three against one.” He pronounced each word carefully. “Three houses and their teachers, convinced that nothing good came from this house, will be watching you closely, ready to pounce. To subtract points. To assign detention. To the other houses, _ you _ are the enemy.” He paused again.

“Therefore, no matter what happens in here – you will have your housemate’s back. Because you all have no one else. Do you understand?”

Isobel saw the gaze drill Travers, Flint, then travel over to Malfoy, who seemed to deflate. Around her, heads nodded and murmured affirmatives.


	4. First Day

Classes started the next morning. The Slytherin prefects handed out schedules at breakfast. Coira waved hers at Isobel and made a pouting face as she squeezed in beside her

“We don’t have Defense Against the Dark Arts until tomorrow.”

“So?”

Coira sighed. “Didn’t you see who’s the new teacher?” 

Isobel glanced up at the head table. The wizard in bright purple who Professor Dumbledore had introduced last night as Gilderoy Lockhart was talking into Professor Snape’s ear. For his part, the potions master was staring doggedly forward, and working his way mechanically through his eggs and sausage.

Brid was right – he was definitely a git.

She smirked, taking another bite of eggs. “I see. He seems very friendly with Professor Snape.”

With a rush of wings and, a flurry of owls appeared, bringing the mail. Again, Isobel forced herself to not react. To not look like a clueless bumpkin.

A screeching voice filled the room, and every conversation broke off.

_ “RONALD WEASLEY! _

_ — STEALING THE CAR, I WOULDN'T HAVE BEEN SURPRISED IF THEY'D EXPELLED YOU, YOU WAIT TILL I GET HOLD OF YOU, I DON'T SUPPOSE YOU STOPPED TO THINK WHAT YOUR FATHER AND I WENT THROUGH WHEN WE SAW IT WAS GONE — _

_ — LETTER FROM DUMBLEDORE LAST NIGHT, I THOUGHT YOUR FATHER WOULD DIE OF SHAME, WE DIDN'T BRING YOU UP TO BEHAVE LIKE THIS, YOU AND HARRY COULD BOTH HAVE DIED —" _

_ — ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTED — YOUR FATHER'S FACING AN INQUIRY AT WORK, IT'S ENTIRELY YOUR FAULT AND IF YOU PUT ANOTHER TOE OUT OF LINE WE'LL BRING YOU STRAIGHT BACK HOME.” _

laughter spread through the hall in the silence. Down the table, Malfoy was using the opportunity to make another pathetic Potter-directed joke. At the high table, Professor Snape, smirking, took the moment to extricate himself from Professor Lockhart and leave the table.

She leaned over to Zambini – a second year. “What happened?”

“I heard Weasley and Potter decided to arrive in grand style last night in a flying car instead of the train, but crashed into the Whomping Willow, wrecked the car, and got weeks of detention. Or something. Malfoy’s been acting like it’s his birthday after he heard this morning.”

“What’s a Whomping Willow?”

He shrugged. “A murderous tree. I don’t know. I just stay away.”

She peered between student heads, searching the Gryffindor table. “Which are they?”

Zambini nodded toward a knot of red hair at one end. “Potter’s the dark one in the sea of Weasleys”

A scrawny boy with untidy black hair and round glasses.

He said the name like he expected her to know who that was. She settled for a matching smirk to cover her woeful ignorance. Maybe there'd be a book of modern history in the library that would bring her up to sunf.

“The Boy Who Lived himself,” he said, apparently taking her smirk as responce enough, and pretended to gag.

She glanced back as the dark-haired boy stood to leave with a group of Gryffindors. 

Then Coira nudged her.“Come on then, we’ve got transfiguration first thing.”

Zambini groaned. “Don’t be late for McGonagall's class, whatever you do. She’ll take house points away from Slytherin faster than anything.”

As they filed into her class moments later, she watched them severely over her half-moon spectacles. She gave them their first assignment in a clipped, cool voice.

Turning a match into a needle. Few students could do it on their first try, she informed them. And no one did.

Potions was next.

As the first years from the two rival houses filtered into the room, they watched each other, expecting hostility, and prepared to meet it.

Professor Snape had just begun to read off names, when a tiny Gryffindor exploded into the room at a run, a camera clutched in his hands. He skidded to a halt beside another – Weasley?

“Mr. Creevey – I believe?” Snape asked in a cold voice.

“Yes, sir. Professor, sir,” the boy panted.

“As you are well aware, this class began a moment ago.”

“Yes sir. I had trouble finding the room sir.”

“That is what the break between your classes is for, Mr. Creevey.” He glanced at the camera, and his lip curled contemptuously. “ _ Not _ for sightseeing.”

“No sir,” Creevey gulped.

“Ten points from Gryffindor.” He turned to the rest of the class, folding his arms, scanning the class with his dark eyes.

“You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion-making.” He spoke in barely more than a whisper. "As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic. I don't expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses. I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death.”

Isobel realized she was holding her breath, mesmerized by his words. She exhaled softly.

“ _ If _ you aren't as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach," he added in low growl, breaking the spell.

She glanced across the room. Creevey looked terrified, the red-head, mutinous.

Professor Snape gave more instructions for the expanding portion they’d be brewing this morning, and then waved his wand at the blackboard. “Instructions on the board. Begin.”

An hour and a half later, across the room, students were bending over steaming cauldrons, stirring slowly. Or not slowly, in the case of Creavy, who looked very worried.

Professor Snape stalked from bench to bench, watching the students, and often criticizing their work.

Isobel hesitantly raised her hand, and he turned toward her, arching a dark eyebrow. “Yes, Miss Crawford?”

“Professor Snape, sir, I,” she hesitated as the class all gaped at her. “My potion isn’t turning purple. I was wondering if you could tell me what I missed?”

He stepped over to her shoulder and dipped in a ladle, which he raised and poured back, a stream of dark liquid splashing back into the calderin.

“Ten points for Slytherin,” he announced in his cold, quiet voice. “For asking a question the rest of you lot should have. As it is,” he told her, “ _ yours _ is almost usable. Ten more points to Slytherin.”

He set the ladle down. “To crush the newt’s eyes sufficiently for this potion, you need to use a rocking motion with the flat of the knifeblade.”

Isobel nodded, and made a quick note in her book.

He moved on to investigate a green mist that was flowing from the rim of Creevey’s caldrine. 

“Did you even attempt to crush the eyes?” He barked and waved his wand. The mist – and the contents of Creevey's cauldron – vanished. “Ten points from Gryffindor for lazy, dangerous, stupidity.”

Creevey seemed to shrink into the floor, but the Weasley girl stepped forward, eyes blazing. She opened her mouth, but Professor Snape cut her off. “Careful, Ginevra Weasley. You don’t want to lose more points for your house.”

She clenched her jaw, glaring at him as he glided away, then she turned woodenly back to her cauldron and began to pack her things, slamming books into her bag.

As they filed out, clutching books, cauldrons, and quills, Isobel’s foot caught, and she would have fallen, spilling school things everywhere, if Coira hadn’t caught her.

She looked up into the face of a big first year Gryffindor. Andrew Botkins was the name he’d answered to when Professor Snape called role. 

He was glowering. “Kissing our resident Death Eater’s arse,” he hissed. “One shouldn't expect any less from a  _ Crawford _ .” He spat the name out like a curse, then grinned wickedly. “How’s your father these days? I’d expect he’s quite mad, by now. It’s too bad, really, considering. I’d like to think he still remembers  _ exactly _ why he’s there. After all,” he added nastily. “Your mum should be as thankful as any he’s locked away.”

She’d stared blankly at his face for a moment as he’d started talking, caught off guard, and completely clueless about what he was saying. But his intent was perfectly plain, as was the sneer on his face. And whatever he’d said about her dad, it actually sounded worse than the things the kids said back at St. Fursey’s – her primary school. 

Her temper rose, and she pulled out her own wand, and pointing it at him, shouted something she’d read in the Standard Book of Spells. 

It didn't seem to do anything, but before he could respond, Weasley was at his side, her own wand raised.

“Slugulus Eructo!”

More green light light illuminated the dungeon passageway, which was instantly deflected by a black-haired Slytherin first year that Isobel hadn’t met yet. He flashed her a crooked grin, before returning with another jinx. Weasley ducked and rolled, her reflexes surprisingly quick, but she left the contents of her book bag scattered across the floor.

“What is going on here?” Professor Snape’s cold voice cut through the air like a whip. 

The students froze. Weasley picked herself back up, slowly. 

“I think we’ve got it sorted, Professor,” said the Slytherin first year, breaking the silence. His wand seemed to have vanished into an inner pocket the moment Professor Snape appeared.

The professor’s lips curled in a sour smile as he glanced from Weasley’s scattered book bag to Botkins’ hastily concealed wand. Finally, he jerked his head in assent, and set off down the passage. 

After a momentary pause, the Slytherin students set off for lunch as well, moving as a group. Weasley’s voice, ranting about Professor Snape’s obvious favoritism, drifted after them.

Isobel grinned at the boy. “Thanks.”

He shrugged. “We’re snakes. We stick together. My name’s Piers Fawley.”

He was about her height, with pale skin like Malfoy, but with black hair and light hazel eyes. His grin turned down on one side, rendering his expression a bit ambiguous. 

He extended a hand with long, narrow fingers, which she took, surprised at his firm grip.

“Isobel Crawford.” 

The Slytherin first-years deposited their things in their dorm, then headed for lunch. Malfoy was sitting at the table holding court, and talking endlessly about Creevey and signed pictures from Potter.

Travers plunked down on the bench. “I swear Malfoy, any day now, this jealousy is going to materialize in a big fat sign hanging over your head.”

Flint snickered. “I see it now – in Lockhart purple – ‘Draco Malfoy, The Boy Who Wants to be The Boy Who Lived.’”

Malfoy’s mouth snapped shut, the two pink patches appearing on his cheeks. He glared at them, but resisted the apparent urge to threaten two sixth years with his father. 

They laughed, and mock-toasted their tumblers of pumpkin juice. Malfoy marched away, flanked by his matched pair of miniature goons.

Piers and Isobel filled the empty spots, helping themselves to thick pasties loaded with beef and vegetables.

“What’s our afternoon class?” He asked over the rim of his pumpkin juice.

Isobel pulled out her schedule. “Herbology. Greenhouse One. With the Ravenclaws.”

Piers shoved a bite into his mouth. “Oh jolly. Playing in the dirt. I waited 11 years for  _ that _ .” 

His wry tone and crooked smile made her snort with laughter, spilling her juice. “I’m sure all those potions ingredients have to come from somewhere.”

“Isn’t that what Hufflepuffs are for?”

She sat her tumbler down, giggling. 

“Honestly, though,” he added seriously. “My potion wasn’t much better than Creevey’s – Professor Snape isn’t going to like it.” He arched his eyebrows, a question in his eyes.

“Fine – If you’ll show me what you did to block Weasley’s spell, you can work with me on Wednesday.”

He grinned. “Deal. And really, that was a simple shield charm.”

They both glanced up at their head of house at the teachers’ table. Dressed in black as always, he was a stark contrast to the riot of fuchsia and chartreuse the new DADA professor was draped in. As always, he seemed to be having an animated conversation with the unresponsive side of Professor Snape’s head. Snape, for his part, looked either murderous or sick. It was hard to tell.

“Don’t they look chummy,” Piers stated in a perfectly serious voice, which sent Isobel into another fit of snorting laughter. “What an eye for fashion.”

“Coira said he’s won Witch Weekly's Most Charming Smile five times,” she said dubiously.

Piers snickered. “She  _ would _ know. My dad says the only reason Professor Dumbledore hired him is the DADA job is jinxed, and no one worth their credentials would take it this year.”

“Jinxed?”

He nodded. “There hasn’t been a DADA professor who’s stayed more than a year for years. My brother’s a fifth year, and he says it’s true. He’s had all sorts. Last year –” Piers dropped his voice to a whisper and leaned closer. “Last year, people said all sorts of funny business happened with last-year’s DADA prof. Anthony – that’s my brother – says Quirrell had something to do with – with He Who Must Not Be Named.”

Her eyes grew wide, a strange tight feeling settling in her stomach. That was one term Brid had heard, and had passed on. He’d been bad as wizards could be, she said. He killed people – even non-magical people.

“But he’s gone.”

Piers shrugged. “That’s all I know,” he said dismissively.

She pushed to her feet, trying to shake off the sudden gravity. Class was going to start soon.

At herbology, they worked in pairs, and through a misfortune of place and time, Isobel found herself paired with the radish-necklace girl from the train rather than with Piers or Coira. “Loony Luna,” as her housemates had taken to calling her, had whispered warnings about hordes of invisible creatures all morning. She pointed out plant after plant, extolling their virtues and offering advice on how they could protect from said creatures.

While it made focusing on Madam Sprout’s lesson annoyingly difficult, it did, however, work wonders toward pushing a Professor Quirrell into the category of “crazy rumors” in her mind, along with snargoyels and rootterthumps.

So in all, she and Luna parted as, maybe not friends, but cordial acquaintances.

Back inside, the castle was buzzing with the story of Professor Lockhart’s first class – second-year Gryffindors – and his misadventure with a crate full of Cornish Pixies. 

At dinner, he actually looked quite cowed, his hair askew. Professor Snape, however, seemed perfectly content.


	5. A Sister

The next morning, as the hall filled with the flurry of owls and the morning post, to Isobel’s amazement, a large gray owl landed in front of her, a letter in its beak. It dropped it onto her eggs, and flew off, leaving a feather floating into her pumpkin juice. She made a face and picked up the letter, brushing it off.

The envelope was parchment and her name was written in ink by a quill. This letter wasn’t from anyone she knew in the outside world. Mystified, she started to open it, then Coira leaned over.

“What’cha have there?”

She pointedly slipped the envelope into her bag. “ _ My _ mail.”

“I was just asking,” Coira in a slightly haughtily and injured voice.

Isobel had to wait through two long classes before she had a chance to slip away to the library – deserted this early in the term – where she found a hidden nook that seemed quiet and private enough to open her mystery letter. 

The handwriting was an even, feminine script, and at the top was her name.

_ My dear Isobel, _

_ I am going to be honest. I have started this letter half a dozen times, and wasted several feet of parchment along the way. What does one say to one’s sister after 11 years? _

_ Yes, I am your sister Cassandra – well, to be perfectly correct, I am your half sister. My father married your mum when I was only two years old, and she became the only person I knew as mum.  _

_ When she was killed and dad was taken away, his parents took me in, but angry with dad for marrying a muggleborn, they sent you to your mum’s parents.  _

_ I have spent years dreaming about the day I would be able to send you this owl. You see, when I was younger, my grandparents strictly forbid me to try and contact you. I think they hoped I would eventually forget you ever existed. Then, when I was old enough to escape their careful watch, I realized that you might have no idea about our world, and knew, in the end, that had to wait until you started at Hogwarts.  _

_ I am currently in my first year of training at St. Mungo’s Hospital to become a healer, which is in London. _

_ I would dearly love to meet you the next time you are in or traveling through London to King’s Cross, and find out what sort of a person my beautiful baby sister has grown up into. But I also know you have your own world. You have your own life apart from me, and if you have no desire to meet me, I’ll understand. If you do not write back, I will understand, and you will not hear from me again. _

_ But if you are open to meeting me, you needn't send more than a line or two. I’m sure you are busy with new friends and classes at Hogwarts. _

_Sincerely yours,__  
_ _Cassandra Alice Crawford_

Isobel read the letter through twice as the meaning slowly sunk in. Brid hadn’t made that part up either. She really did have a sister. Like Malfoy had said when they met in the bookshop. Did he actually know this Cassandra?

So, she’d been raised by her grandparents as well – no, Isobel realized with a strange shock. These people Cassandra said hadn’t wanted her were also  _ her _ grandparents. Her dad’s parents. Just because she was a half-blood. A term she’d quickly become familiar with in Slytherin.

And Cassandra wanted to know her. She felt her heart begin to race, her eye caught by another line: “she became the only person I knew as mum.” Cassandra had known her mum and dad. 

“There you are.” Pier’s quiet voice from behind made Isobel jump. 

“What do you want?” She hissed back feeling a surge of annoyance at the boy for popping up like that at this moment.

He raised his eyebrows.

“Well,” he said cooly. “It’s a really nice afternoon and most of the school is outside – but I didn’t see you, Botkins, or Weasley, so I wondered if –” He shrugged. “So I’ll be going then.”

She felt a little twinge of guilt for snapping at the only person in her year who seemed to be perfectly easy with her muggle upbringing. 

Brid always made making friends seem so easy, and not for the first time, Isobel envied her. 

But at the same time, she was feeling decidedly shy about sharing something so new to her with someone else this soon. She hardly knew how to feel about this revelation herself. 

She moved to slide the letter out of Piers’ sight, but realized his keen eyes were already fixed on it. Huffily, she folded it up.

“That’s mine. It’s private.”

“Sorry.” He didn’t sound sorry at all. Rather than leaving, he slid into a chair beside her. 

“Did you know?”

“Know what?” She snapped back stubbornly, refusing to give him anything more.

“Your sister, of course.”

“Yes.” It wasn’t a total lie. Brid  _ had _ included her with the rest of the garbled story. Isobel just hadn’t really believed her. 

He considered her with his thoughtful gaze for a few minutes, and she stared resolutely back. This was none of his business. He shifted uncomfortably and frowned. “Do you –,” he started in a low, quiet voice. “Has anyone ever told you what really happened with He Who Must Not Be Named?”

Isobel stiffened, her eyes narrowed. “What does that have to do with anything? – And yes I know very well about – that.”

“I really think you – well, it might be better –” He wrinkled his forehead. “It might be better if you know what happened before you meet the Crawfords.”

“I know what happened,” she hissed back.

He shrugged and stood up. “Fine. I’ll see you around then.”

She watched him go feeling very hot with temper. Then, annoyed that she was taking his advice, she found the librarian and, suddenly feeling very cowed by the dangerous look in the woman’s eyes, asked in a very squeaky voice if there were any books with recent history.

“How recent?” Asked Madam Pince in a severe tone.

“Last – well, ten years ago?”

“You mean the end of the Wizarding War with You Know Who?” She demanded.

“Yes – mam. I think.”

The Madam Pince glared at her for another moment, as if judging whether she was worthy to touch any of the precious volumes under her care. Finally, she gave a sharp nod and told Isobel to follow her.

In a section hung with a very large sign marked Wizarding History, Madam Pince scanned the shelf for a second and pulled out a book that looked much newer than some of the dusty tomes surrounding it.

“This should do,” she said. “You can check it out –  _ please _ do not return it late. And there are severe penalties for damaging school books.”

Isobel carefully slid “That Time of Darkness: From the Death Eater Uprising to the Dark Lord’s fall” into her book bag and headed out of the castle to find a secluded spot in the sun to read. She’d be mortified if a Slytherin caught her reading a primer about something they seemed to all be experts on.

As much as she hated to admit it, she decided to take Pier’s advice and hold off replying to her sister’s letter.

Cracking open the book, she started to read. 

The book first outlined a number of years when nothing much was happening, but he was slowly building support and exerting control over Ministry of Magic officials and members of pureblood families. Then the muggle killings began, and his supporters began to step into the light.

By her third chapter, something hard and twisting had become lodged in Isobel’s stomach as the book in unsympathetic, unembellished prose, stated simply and factually, the horrible things he and his followers began to do as his power and influence grew.

There were vicious attacks on muggles and muggle-borns which he openly despised, it said. It went on to describe four particularly high profile murders that happened over four consecutive years in the 1970s.

She pulled her eyes away from the page and glanced up, her eyes caught by the afternoon sun dancing on the lake. Inside, her thoughts began to spin faster and faster, and something that felt very like fear was pushing the other emotions to the corners of her mind.

She simply could not connect what Brid said about her dad with what this dry, basic history book was saying about the war. She shut the book with snap, and promised herself that she’d finish it after she gave herself a little time to sort it all out in her head.

_ And of course,  _ said a little voice, _ history  _ is _ always written by the victor. Maybe it’s not as bad as this book makes out, or maybe the other side gave as bad as they got. _

Hell, she’d grown up in  _ Belfast _ .

“I’ll finish it later – I will,” she promised herself.

But the next few days slid by packed with Charms, Potions, Transfiguration, Defense Against the Dark Arts, and Herbology. Teachers began assigning homework to write or practice for all of her classes, and the half-read book, along with the letter from her sister, sunk to the bottom of her bag, where it lay, very comfortably forgotten.

When the Slytherin first-years had their first DADA class, Professor Lockhart kept strictly to reading from the library of his books he’d made them all buy. 

As he called role their first class, he stuttered over several family names, including Isobel’s. The look of unease on his face reminded her unpleasantly of her book, but she’d carefully forgotten it again by the time Lockhart timidly invited Denzil Avery to join him in a demonstration of how he’d defeated the banshee. Denzil shot him such a menacing look that he hid behind the book for the rest of the class.

Piers’ comments dropped throughout the painfully flamboyant prose kept much of the class snickering through the allotted hour. It was hardly conducive to learning, but then, from what Isobel heard from Luna, there was no learning in any of his better behaved classes, either.

At the Slytherin table, he became an established joke. Travers and Flint spent most of one breakfast laughing about the last class. They’d asked him about defending against some of the darkest spells known to the wizarding world.

“Travers asked if he might demonstrate how to block the Cruciatus – offered to cast it. I’m sure he pissed himself right there.”

A sixth-year girl leaned over and quoted a particularly unfortunate line from “Gadding with Ghouls.” The context rendered it so wildly inappropriate that the whole table gasped with laughter.

At the teacher’s table, Lockhart was making a decided effort to avoid ever looking in their direction. Professor Snape, it seemed, had also managed to change the seating arrangement so that Professor Sprout now separated them. She nodded good naturedly at his constant stream of words, only looking a little pained now and then.

“But honestly,” Piers said, once he’d caught his breath. “It’s alright for you lot – this is your last year or so.”

Travers shrugged. “They won’t teach you want you really need here at Hogwarts, anyway. Not any teacher Dumbledore would hire.” 

Along the table first, second, and third years turned toward the quiet conversation.

“Could you teach us, then? On weekends and such?” Piers asked, his eyes bright.

Travers’ eyes narrowed as he examined each of the eager faces. “Well let’s see. If you want me to teach you, you’d better know up front there’ll be no mollycoddling. I’ll teach you like I was taught. You’ll take hits and it’ll hurt. And you’ll get back up and take ‘em again. Or I’m done with you – got it?”

Piers and Isobel nodded. Coira looked frightened, but she whispered her assent. Down the table, even Malfoy was leaning in – his mouth shut tight for once.


	6. Dueling Club

The “study rooms” as the prefect had called them on their first night were really two – one with a tables and chairs, and the other was long, low, and empty of furniture. A thick emerald green mat covered the floor.

Travers waved the cluster of twelve first through third year Slytherins in. “We have our most esteemed founder to thank for this,” he informed them. “A room where we can safely practice spells that _ may _ be out of a normal student’s study here.”

Several sixth and seventh years joined him. 

The perfect who’d lead them to Slytherin on their first night – a girl with long black hair reminded him in an undertone that if he sent anyone to the infirmary with an obviously banned jinx, Professor Snape and Dumbledore would shut this down in a moment.

He nodded irritably. “None of them are even close to successfully casting anything remotely dark,” he said.

Malfoy muttered – loud enough for the room to hear – about studying curses with his father to Pansy.

Travers rounded on him. “You have one chance, Malfoy. One. Bloody. Chance. If you bring that ‘my father’ shite in here, you’re out. Your father is a daft preening git who bets on money and kissing arse to get him through any tight spot!”

The vehemence startled everyone, and Malfoy’s mouth snapped shut. His face turned even more pale, and then bright pink. His hands clenched into fists, and he stood almost trembling for a moment. Nobody moved, or even really breathed. Crabbe and Goyle stared at Travers, their eyes bulging in their fat faces.

Then Malfoy swallowed, his hands slowly uncurled, and he jerked his head in assent. “I understand,” he said, his voice wooden.

“Bloody hell,” Piers muttered as everyone began to breath again and spread around the room.

Travers started them with defensive spells – shields and deflecting. And Isobel was quietly happy to see Malfoy struggle as much as she was. So much for practicing at home.

Piers, who _ had _ been taught quite a bit of combative magic at home, fared better than many of the second and third years. But even he, once Travers took him on, hit the mat over and over. Bruised and sore, they collapsed into bed that night.

On sunday, they caught up on homework and passed around remedies – mostly from mothers – for sore muscles. 

***

The following week of class was the most frustrating five days that she'd ever known. All her attempts at spells were either rubbish or had no effect at all. 

It was Coira who first made a comment about her muggle beginnings and blood status in connection with her abysmal spell work. She’d snapped back that Coira should keep her opinions to herself or shove them.

As they were supposed to be trying to transfigure their matchsticks instead of trading verbal barbs, Professor McGonagall, with her darkest look, took five points each from Slytherin. The others shot them dirty looks for the loss, while Coira refused to look at Isobel at all for the rest of the period. 

When Isobel turned back to her matchstick, she’d snapped the incantation with such temper that it disappeared in a flash of flame and smoke. Piers raised his eyebrows and smirked in his crooked way was McGonagall swept over tightlipped, and waved her wand, dissipating the smoke instantly.

“Color, Miss Crawford. We are changing the sticks red, may I remind you,” she snapped. “Do try and control your temper in my class.” She waved her wand again, and a new match flew from the box on her desk to land in front of Isobel. 

One of her other classmates sitting behind her snickered. When the bell rang, Isobel scooped her things into her bag and dashed from the classroom. Suddenly, she realized she’d started to regret not asking the Hat for some other house. 

That evening, after quietly asking Piers about the mail post, she sat in the corner and wrote her first letter home to Brid. 

As she pulled parchment and quill, she felt a twinge of guilt over the letter crumpled at the bottom of her bag that she’d yet to respond to, and wouldn’t, until she finished reading the book, that was keeping it company.

But instead, she pictured her pretty young aunt, and started to write. She’d dash down a line, cross it out, and write another.

_ Dear Brid, _  
How are you? How are your new classes going?  
_ XXXXXXX XXXXXX XXX. Hogwarts is crazy, and the moving staircases and paintings are so strange. XXXXXX Did mum ever tell you about them? We have a XXXXX wall we need to go through to get to our house XXXXXX XXXXXX XXXXX. I’m in Slytherin. That’s a sort of dorm. There are three others. XXXXX XXXXX XXXXXXXXX XXX XXXXXXXX XXXX Dad was in this house. Do you know what house mum was in? XXXXXXX I don’t think XXXXXXX she would have been put in Slytherin. They don’t care for XXXXXXXX witches and wizards like mum. XXXXXXX Because she was born to normal people. XXXXXXXXX I mean, your family. I’m okay with them because of dad – XXXXXXX most of them, anyway. _ _  
Speaking of dad – _

She lifted her quill from the page, leaving three round ink drops on the paper. What could she ask? How would she ask?

_ – I found a history book in the library that talks about some of the stuff his side it. And I was wondering if he ever talked about _

She hesitated again. What would she say – did dad ever talk about killing or torturing people? Did he ever talk about pledging his life and soul to the darkest, most evil wizard to ever live? That nasty, suspicious, painful pressure in her chest was growing again, and she ended by crossing the whole thing about the book and dad out.

_ XXXXX XXXX – X XXXXX XXXXXXX XXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXX XXXXX XXXXXX XXX. XXXXXX XXXXXX XXXXXX XXXX XXXX So Hogwarts has been fun, but I’m pretty much rubbish with my wand. XXXXXXXXX I can’t get it to do anything I want. So that’s been XXXXXXXXX frustrating. But don’t worry – I’m sure I’ll be loads better by Christmas holidays. _ _  
_ _ Is Emmet still in England? Have you been to visit him yet? XXXXXX XXXX XXXXXX. I miss you. _

_ Love, _ _  
_ _ Isobel _

She scanned through the mess, and shrugged. If she’d be able to see Brid face to face, she’d tell her all about how miserable this week had been, and how this whole magic thing was a bust. She briefly considered re-writing the letter on a fresh parchment, but then shrugged, figuring Brid would be fine with her mess.

She rolled it up, and finding her way to the school owlery, she added a postscript to the outside of the letter telling her the best thing to do was to write a response letter while the owl waited, and send it back with the nice big brown owl that she’d fixed the letter to.

Then she knelt down to eye level with the slowly blinking bird, and spoke slowly and clearly, hoping she’d done it right. “Please take this letter to Bridget Marie Callaghan. She lives in Belfast above a butcher shop. And wait for her to write a return letter. Okay?”

The bird blinked back at her, and she shrugged and carried the owl to the window, holding on a moment longer.

“To Bridget Callaghan. And wait for a return letter,” she told it one more time before releasing the bird. It zoomed away across the rugged Scotland mountains.

She stood at the window for another minute, watching its dot vanish into the distance, and then another to admire the setting sun’s rays striking the far mountains and deep valleys. It was so peaceful, up here, she realized. A part of her never wanted to leave. But then the sun sank behind the mountains, and she turned to descend the tower.

Brid’s letter by return post arrived four mornings later. The owl landed on her breakfast table and dropped the linen envelope onto her morning toast and marmalade, and flapped away. Coira, who’d been avoiding her since the transfiguration class when they’d both lost points seemed to notice it right away, and loudly whispered something about obvious muggle envelope to Parkinson sitting beside her.

Glowering, she’d wiped the envelop clean of marmalade and pocketed it to read later when she could be alone. 

But because of inches assigned by Professors Snape and McGonagall, and practice for Charms and Transfiguration, she wasn’t able to get away before bedtime. Wrapped in her little private cocoon of emerald bed curtains, she finally pulled out Brid’s letter, lifted her wand, and whispered. “Lumos.”

A thin light appeared at the tip, quavered, almost went out, came back, then vanished completely. 

She tried again, and this time, nothing happened at all.

Frustrated, she threw back her blankets and the bed curtains. The air had that dark, damp feel now that the fire in their room had faded into softly glowing coals. She shivered and threw her dressing gown around her pajamas, and padded barefoot from the room.

The common room was as empty as she’d hoped, and here, as always, the fire was warm and bright. In the stillness of the night, she could hear the dark windows creak as the lake stirred lazily. She chose a prime chair beside the fire and drew her knees up to her chest, wrapping her dressing gown around her legs and feet. 

Then she tore open the letter as softly as possible, and three sheets of lined paper – lovely, familiar, normal paper – slid out. 

Brid’s equally slapdash handwriting wandered across the lines. She gushed excitement about the magical castle that she’d heard about from Fiona when she was little, and then she jumped on the subject of Emmett and the job he’d been offered in Manchester, England. She was going to go visit him there soon. Maybe even move over there like Isobel had suggested. She was sure shops always needed keeping – there as anywhere. Well, she was stuck in Belfast until the end of this term at the Uni, anyway. Which wasn’t going so well either. If she could just remember to do the homework before it was due.

The end came way too soon – in which she reminded Isobel that she was a Callaghan woman – and they were all tough, and always did what they set out to do in the end, and she was going to do just fine and make a really blinking good witch. She just needed to have patience and keep plunking away at her lessons.

Isobel grinned. The letter had felt like a little bit of Brid had been there with her in the room, and she’d left a bit of her glow behind.

It almost made up for Isobel’s inability to cast something as daft as a _ Lumos _ charm. Almost. She made a face at her ghostly reflection in the dark windows, which was broken a moment later by a great yawn. She rubbed her eyes and carefully folded the letter, then slipped back to bed.

As she drifted off to sleep, she could almost see Brid rolling her eyes at her, and telling her to not be a ninny – to relax, that she’d get it eventually. 

***

The next Saturday, only half the number showed up. Crabbe and Goyle, with Malfoy as always, looked like they’d rather be anywhere else.

Malfoy didn’t look any happier, but he glared stubbornly back at Travers. 

“Sure you’re up for another beating, Malfoy?” The older student jibed. “What with your _ vital _ role in Quidditch.”

“I can take anything you throw at me,” Malfoy snapped back. 

The corner of Traver’s mouth twitched, but he shrugged and turned away.

For the rest of the lesson, she struggled to hit her partners with anything other than words, and when Travers called an end, she was feeling hot and flustered. Her chest felt all tied up with knots of temper, and Parkinson's snide comment as she passed that Isobel was obviously a “half-mud” brought a dark flush to her face. 

She balled her hands in fists and turned to flee, but Travers called for her to wait. When the others had filtered out, he beckoned her over. 

“May I see your wand?” He asked. 

She hesitated for a second, then held it out.

He balanced it on two fingers and held it up to the torchlight. “This is blackthorn?” He handed it back.

She nodded. “That’s what the man in the shop said.”

“From what I understand about wandlore, blackthorn wands can be very powerful, but they take time. This isn’t the sort of wand you can just point, speak, and expect results.”

“What then?”

“Blackthorn bonds with the wizard through struggle and some say it takes hard life experience to fully bond.”

“So how does that help me?” She asked, feeling her frustration rise again.

“You’ve got to put your will and soul into that wand. You’ve got to get beneath that childish temper into what’s deeper and work from there.”

“I don’t understand,” she snapped.

“That. That temper,” he snapped back. “Where does it come from? What’s going on down there? Figure it out, and then learn to direct that force of emotion into your focus and your wand, rather than letting it diffuse into this petulance.”

She glared at him, feeling at once hot and cold.

“This frustration is muddying your focus. It’s emotion, but you’ve got no control over it. It’s now worth anything and it will do nothing for your excellent wand. You’ve got to keep a clear head and trace that deeper – _ why _ are you upset?”

She glared at him, but her mind was working again. She was definitely angry with herself for being rubbish at spellwork. The other first and second years noticed, and she could feel their condescension – raised by muggles, what can you expect? 

Raised by muggles _ and _ unwanted by her dad’s family. Or really by her mum’s parents either – if she was counting. Brid had moved away from home as soon as she could, and had basically taken Isobel with her. Grandmum hadn’t even protested.

And then there was dad. As far as she knew, he was actually still alive. Alive, but stolen from her by the Ministry of Magic, if Brid was to be believed.

As she forced herself to think, she felt her temper begin to fade, replaced by a deeper, more focused something. It wasn’t a pleasant feeling.

He smiled. “That’s better. So now, take what you are feeling and instead of letting that explode out in temper or anger – you focus it into the curse or jinx you want to perform and on that wand.”

She frowned, forcing herself to hold it together, rather than letting it diffuse into temper. “I tried something like that on Botkins the first day,” she said. Her voice was tense, but at least it didn’t sound petulant.

He nodded briskly. “This takes practice. And time. There’s no rushing it with this wand.”

“So what about other things – charms?”

He shrugged. “It’s sort of the same. You have to focus on the result you want. The dangerous emotions like anger and hurt don’t do a lot for your charms, of course. For those, you’ve got to know what you want, and focus. And like the other, you get frustrated and you’ve lost that.” He grinned, raising his own wand. “Give it a try?”

She took a step back, and a deep breath. She closed her eyes, trying to follow the frustration down into where it connected with her center. She thought about her dad. A shadowy figure in Brid’s stories, stories that didn’t seem to jibe at all with that bloody history book. But thanks to the Ministry of Magic, he’d been stolen from her before she’d ever been able to form her own opinion on her dad. 

Meanwhile, Malfoy and his little gang of second-years had all decided that she wasn’t really worthy to be in this house, after her abysmal performance in class and in Travers’ sessions.

She felt her throat tighten in anger, then she pushed it down, thinking of the spell. Focusing on one point she knew for sure – her dad had been a great wizard named Gideon Crawford, who came from as pure a blood as any of them, and on that fact alone, if no other, she belonged here. And somehow, she was going to get to the truth of what sort of man he’d been as well, if it is the last thing she’d do.

She opened her eyes, and focused on both Travers’ relaxed face and that powerful feeling pushing to explode out of her. 

She shouted the word, and in some way, she could feel the wand awake like it did the first time she’d waved it in the shop. And it seemed to connect in a sort of weak, flickering, barely-there way, to her heart. 

Green light shot from the end.

It wasn’t strong, and Travers deflected it with barely a flick of his wand, but it was more than she’d accomplished all day. She felt her face split apart with a wide grin.

He nodded briskly. “Right. Now practice that a hundred times and you _ might _ be good.”

She’d been saying spells and waving her wand for the last hour, and so this time, her muscles and mind responded without thinking through the steps in some ordered fashion. That last verbal jab from Travers didn’t have time to reach and react with her insecurities. Instead, she turned it right around and another green light shot from the end of her wand. 

He flicked his wand again, deflecting the jinx. He gave her a final nod and pocketed his wand. 

“Good.”

***

September faded into October, which in turn, was slipping away as Travers finally introduced some darker hexes and jinxes into their repertoire. 

The history book remained forgotten in her bag, and the letter began to look a bit worn after lying crumpled in the bottom layer of her book bag. The longer she put off a reply, the harder it became to think about doing so. 

Piers seemed to naturally absorb the darker hexes, while hers still frequently fizzled and failed. Over and over, she reminded herself to focus on the deeper feelings, and to pour those into the wand. And to not get in her own way with temper. 

As the weeks went on, in and out of class, she did begin to feel a gradual, growing connection with the wand, as she shared more of her soul with it.

When not in Travers’ sessions, they went to class, sat up late in the common room researching potion ingredients, astrological patterns, and writing essays on the theory of transfiguration. The later being one of Isobel’s least favorite classes. She always felt as if Professor McGonagall was simply waiting for one of them to set a toe out of line, so she could take points away from their house.

It made transfiguring matchsticks and buttons and mice that much more difficult.

Charms was her other least favorite.

The morning of Halloween, Piers was the first to get his feather to rise off the desk, while hers simply twitched. Frustration started to cloud her focus as she watched Piers’ feather bounce up and down as he flicked his wand.

She took a deep breath and tried to capture the frustration now boiling in her chest and channel it into her wand. The feather was having none of it. 

She slapped her wand onto the desk just too hard, and dropped her face on the heels of her hands, telling herself to relax. To breath. She didn’t have to get it the first try. Or the second. Or the – tenth. 

“Okay there?” Piers asked.

She nodded, stretching. “I just – what am I doing wrong?”

He glanced up at the still floating feather, then lowered his wand, the feather following. “I just relaxed. Sort of casually asked the feather to consider rising, I guess.”

She glared at him.

“Blimey, Isobel. I don’t have a bloody idea why it’s not working for you.”

“Thanks. I’ll be sure to help you loads in Potions tomorrow.”

He turned away, muttered something about girls and went back to his flying feather.

Isobel took three deep breaths, blinked away the prickling in her eyes, and picked up the wand again. “Wingardium Leviosa.”

She’d convinced the feather to make one little hop by the end of class. So, of course, that was her homework.

“Brilliant,” she muttered as she packed her books away.

Piers pointedly avoided looking her way again, and quickly disappeared out the door.


	7. Looking for Snarkels

She’d found a little corner in a hidden nook by the castle that was shielded from the cold grey rain, where she finally let the frustration out in a fountain of hot tears.

She was angry at that stupid feather. And at Piers for having no problem with it. She was angry with herself for failing so abysmally, with no idea if she’d ever master this simple charm – let alone anything complicated. And she was angry and ashamed of herself for this rush of emotion over something so little and stupid.

One didn’t cry over a feather. 

That brought a fresh wave, and she hugged her knees to her chest and buried her face, listening to the far off chatter of student voices, and hoping with all her might that no one would find her before she got over it, and her face went back to normal.

There was probably a charm to fix red puffy eyes. 

She’d probably fail at it.

“Oh hullo. See any blue-tailed snarkels around here?” 

The dreamy voice caused a moment of panic, followed by fresh anger. It should be a right to cry without interruption. She turned her face toward the ancient stone wall and willed her voice to sound normal.

“Bug off.”

There was a pause, then Luna sat down beside her, shaking out a dripping cloak.

“This is just the place to find a blue-tailed snarkel,” she said, her tone conversational. “I come here sometimes to look. Usually on days when I would really like for something happy to happen.” She sighed. “I haven’t seen any yet. But you’re here.”

She fell silent, and Isobel clenched her jaw to stop the sobbing, still facing the wall. They sat like that for a long time. Then Luna spoke again.

“The other day, I really wished to find a purple toadkelp – I have such a lovely garden full of them at home. I really miss – I miss their bright little faces – and my housemates laughed at me when I mentioned them. Said there was no such thing. So came out here – to – to look for snarkels.”

Isobel turned around to face Luna, painfully aware of puffy eyes. Luna didn’t seem to notice. Her round, wide eyes were soft.

Isobel nodded, and rubbed her eyes on the sleeve of her damp robe. “I think –” she winced at her hoarse voice. “I think you’re right. This is a good place for snarkels.” She smiled sort of crookedly, and something very tight and unpleasant seemed to let go of her heart. “I think I did see one. Earlier. They have blue tails?”

Luna nodded, smiling now herself, in her dreamy sort of way. “It’s Halloween – my dad says holidays are a good time to find snarkels. They’re drawn to fun, you know.”

Isobel suddenly snorted, and laughing, she rubbed her eyes again. “I don’t suppose you also know how to make feathers fly?”

“Feathers?”

“Yeah – wingardium leviosa.”

Luna didn’t seem to mind the sudden change of direction, and nodded solemnly. “I couldn’t do it until I thought about birds – flying, soaring – and just said it – still thinking about birds. And my feather flew.”

She pulled out her wand. “Do you want to see?”

Isobel pulled out her own, and pointed it at a soggy leaf. “I’ll try.”

She took a deep breath – it didn’t shake anymore – and thought about breezes and feathers and flying. She let herself relax, free from the pressure of the classroom and Piers watching her. Then with just the barest bit of thought, she pointed, flicked, and spoke the words.

The leaf flopped over.

She leaned back against the damp stone wall and let out a long breath that was almost a laugh.

Luna pointed her wand at the leaf and spoke the words as well, but this time, it went spinning away, out into the rain. She frowned, biting her lip in consternation.

“And that’s what always happens. I can get it to rise, but it never stays. Just goes flying away. Professor Flitwick had to do some sort of magic to get my feather off the classroom ceiling.”

This time, Isobel really did laugh. It was a little hiccupy, but she almost felt normal again.

Luna held her wand up at eye level and squinted down its length. “I may have an infestation of ripplewood pips,” she said, perfectly seriously. “They’re a real problem for spell casting. My dad published a big story on them last year. I’ll write him for some nailwart cream. That’s how you get rid of them, you know.” 

Isobel disguised another fit of giggles as a cough and pushed to her feet. “I’m sure that’s it.”

Luna stood too, still frowning at her wand. 

Suddenly Isobel felt very awkward. “Thanks,” she mumbled over her shoulder as she headed back out into the heavy rain. “See you at the feast.”

Luna gave her one of those wide, dreamy smiles. “Oh – well – I was just looking for snarkels.”

***

Live bats filled the ceiling of the great hall, fluttering between the floating candles that were themselves little pumpkins. All around the room sat pumpkins as big as sheds that were carved into funny faces and filled with light.

In the center of the floor, the tables had been moved to clear a place for a troop of dancing skeletons. They played weird music from somewhere, and made lots of rattling thumping, and moaning noises. 

Piers shot Isobel a worried glance when she slid onto the bench beside him at the feast. She grinned back, determined to pretend the afternoon hadn’t happened, and to enjoy the feast.

Gold plates sat at each place, and masses of pumpkin themed food appeared out of nowhere, loading down the tables.

One of the older girls sniffed appreciatively.

“This is more like it,” she stated to no one in particular. “Last year someone let a troll in and we had to finish the feast in our house.”

Malfoy’s pinched voice came from down and two Isobel’s left. 

“It was probably Potter and his friends – thought they’d be heroes by defeating it. A great lumpy mountain troll. Heard it almost killed him and Weasley. Pity it failed.”

Pansy snorted, but was cut short by Travers’ grunt of annoyance.

“Did – did you – ?” Piers started, then broke off.

Isobel glanced at him, her eyebrows raised.

“Did you – practice with the feather anymore?”

She smiled a little sourly. “Yeah, and I’m still rubbish at it. I don’t want to think about it right now.”

Piers nodded and shoved in several large bites of a pumpkin pasty, happy to leave it there.

The rest of the evening slid past in a pumpkin-colored cloud of revelry. Someone started cracking Lockhart jokes, inspired by the blazing orange robes he was swathed in – looking remarkably like one of the giant pumpkin lanterns.

His magically colored orange hair was the final, horrible, hilarious touch. The older boys exchanged bets that his hair would be stuck that color for at least a fortnight. Travers sagely warned them that, unless he was very mistaken, beautification charms were one thing that man could do remarkably well. Isobel stopped caring about the feather as she joined in the laughter, feeling for once like she belonged here with these people.

By the time they trooped out of the hall, stomachs bursting with puddings, they were all thinking of a long, lazy evening devoid of homework.

Suddenly, the crowd of students came to a halt, tripping and stepping into each other. Isobel pushed forward with the rest, desperate to see what had caused the sudden shift in attitude.

Then Malfoy’s sharp little voice rang out. “Enemies of the Heir, beware! You’ll be next, Mudbloods!”

The students surged forward, a chaotic mob of skinny elbows and bruising ankles and twisting robes.

Isobel found herself at the front.

Foot-high words had been daubed on the wall between two windows, shimmering in the light cast by the flaming torches. 

“THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED. ENEMIES OF THE HEIR, BEWARE.”

Bellow hung the caretaker’s cat by her tail, frozen.


	8. The Chamber of Secrets

When the caretaker appeared, shrieking, at the scene, the students were hustled away to their houses. Strangely, in the middle of the mad shuffle, Isobel noticed Lockhart’s hair was back to it’s normal gold. She held in a little giggle. Travers had been right – hair charms were one of the few things the man could do really well.

Apart from Malfoy, everyone in Slytherin had seemed to agree that any further discussion would be done within the privacy of their own house. They hurried down the stairs in a tense silence. Isobel, unsure of what was going on, or who “the heir” referred to, could feel the unease rippling from her older housemates. When the last Slytherin was inside, the voices began – all speaking at once, in loud, agitated voices. 

No one noticed Professor Snape’s arrival until his piercing, familiar voice cut through the noise. Instantly, the students shut their mouths. He glanced around the room at the students, frozen by his sudden appearance. 

His dark eyes glinted dangerously, and he spoke in a slow and quiet, but icy tone.

“First, if I ever find that any one of you is responsible for this, I will  _ personally  _ – see you expelled. Now – from this moment, no one will discuss this –  _ event _ – at any time outside the walls of Slytherin House. There will be  _ no _ foolish threats.” His eyes skewered Malfoy briefly before moving on. “By tomorrow morning, most of the school will most likely have agreed  _ you _ are all responsible, and react accordingly. You will  _ not _ give them further reason to think so.” He glanced around the room, tight lipped. “Gryffindors – with the flimsiest excuse – will go after the weakest targets in retaliation. I strongly suggest you stay together.”

He turned to go, then looked back. “And Travers – your dueling club –” He smiled in a sort of sour, pinched way. “They may need it this year.”

Travers nodded, looking relieved after the flash of apprehension. “Excuse me, professor – but –?”

Professor Snape arched a dark eyebrow, waiting for him to finish the question.

“The – the chamber – it’s real?”

He got a thin smile in response. “There is no evidence that this was anything more than a dangerous prank and a bit of very dark magic.” 

The next morning was a Sunday, so naturally, the school employed the empty day to talk through last night a thousand different ways. Within the Slytherin common room, students pooled their knowledge about the fable, and a good number of owls were sent off straight away to their families, asking about the Chamber.

By mid-morning, Isobel knew all about Slytherin’s falling out with the other school founders, and his threat – warning that his heir would one day appear and purge those of undesirable blood from Hogwarts. None of  _ that  _ had been in  _ Hogwarts, a History _ .

In the light of day, everyone in Slytherin, other than Malfoy, decided it was just what Professor Snape said it was – a nasty Halloween joke. And contrary to his first warning about the school blaming them, most people seemed to think it was Harry Potter. He’d been absent from the feast last night, and had been, instead, lurking in the corridors.

At breakfast, people had been talking about how the caretaker had given him a hard time recently, and how he’d been caught right at the scene. The caretaker – Filtch – spent a good deal of that day scrubbing at the words, which seemed to be magically stuck there. And people who had the misfortune of passing by warned everyone he was trying to hand out detentions for things like breathing too loud and carrying too many books.

Malfoy, on the other hand, strutted around the common room, talking about how brilliant his father was and how he’d warned them all that changes were coming, and how they’d all better be good and nice to him now. His father would be running the school soon.

Flint, who’d put up with him all morning on the quidditch practice field, and was now several books deep in homework, finally turned around and jinxed him with a full body bind. Malfoy’s eyes burning furiously, his arms and legs frozen to his sides, he toppled over. Crabb and Goyle hustled over, and then nervously raised their wands, trying valiantly to think of a spell to release him – it seemed painful – like they were exercising unused muscles. As the two boys pointed their wands in Malfoy’s direction, his eyes widened in fear.

One of the sixth-year girls called them off. She assured them that Flint would let their skinny little master go eventually. They, on the other hand, were likely to turn him blue or make him explode. Malfoy’s frantic eyes seemed to agree.

In the ensuing quiet, Isobel started on her essay for Professor Snape on boomslang skin. 

That was one class Isobel  _ was  _ doing well in. Professor Snape routinely praised her work, awarding house points, while criticising Creevy's work, and, if either protested, Ginny and Botkins. 

At times, Isobel felt sorry for the little muggle-born boy, but at the same time – he did have a knack for creating toxic results. Ginny, while competent, had a tendency to be slap-dash about her work in potions, but dangerous with her wand. 

It was just so frustrating – how two kinds of magic require such different skill sets, Isobel thought.

She took a deep breath, practicing control. The frustration simmered back down and noticing the feather she’d stuck in another book, decided to give it another go.

Luna’s trick hadn’t worked but – she focused on the feather, and thought about what she wanted from  _ it. _ She wanted it to float. To fly. To do what it already was designed for. 

She muttered the words and focused on the feather. It twitched, then rose a few inches into the air. 

A giant grin spread across Isobel’s face, and she flicked her wand up. It followed, then faltered, and floated back to the desk.

Coria noticed, and barged over. “What did you do? I’ve been trying that all morning!”

“Oh – I thought about flying – asked it to rise,” she said slightly sarcastically, looking at Piers, who’d followed her over.

“Can you look over my boomslang essay, then?”

Isobel shot him a dirty look. 

“Please?”

She rolled her eyes and acquiesced. Then casually pointed out six errors he could have avoided by simply reading the book.

The school just began to settle down from Halloween, when tensions began to rise again over the first quidditch game of the season – Gryffindor versus Slytherin. After Slytherin was the reigning champion for six years, the other two houses were firmly rooting for Gryffindor.

There had almost been another battle over it in the hall on their way to potions on Friday. 

A Slytherin first year loudly told Coira about something Malfoy had said about Potter’s skills as a seeker, and Weasley started to attack, but she’d just drawn her wand when Professor Snape appeared and took ten points from Gryffindor.

At breakfast, the Slytherin team was silent and surly as Flint kept feeding Malfoy tips and advice. After the body-bind curse episode a week before, he’d been especially mouthy, and he wasn’t taking the last minute instructions well.

The team’s tension was leaking into the rest of the house, so by the time they trooped down to the pitch as a group, no one was saying much. Isobel, having never particularly cared for sports in the muggle world, was intrigued, but not terribly excited by the prospect of watching her first quidditch match. Regardless, she was going to show her support for their team.

Bellow, she could see the two captains shake – the Slytherins looking sharp with their Nimbus 2001 brooms. 

Then they were off – seven green blurs that quickly outstriped the Gryffindor reds. But she could hear the rest of the school cheering against them. She cast a dirty look across at Ravenclaw where Luna was sitting with other first years.

In spite of the boos from the other houses, Slytherin rapidly took the lead, and while Isobel wasn’t sure about all that was happening, the enthusiasm was infectious. She cheered and whooped along with her house, grinning widely as Flint, playing as a chaser, did a victory roll after one score.

And then the Gryffindor seeker came flying in a dive right past Malfoy, snatching at something by his ear, then hit the ground hard. A cheer exploded from the other houses. He’d caught the snitch and won the game. Someone behind Isobel muttered a very rude word. Deflated, they gathered up rain cloaks and hats and drifted down and back to the castle.

At lunch, no one said much, and the entire team was glaring at Malfoy, who looked appropriately deflated. There were a few muttered about his buying his way onto the team because he was too inept to actually earn it. 

On their way down to Slytherin, Malfoy looked so unhappy, Isobel offered him a quick, sympathetic smile. He scowled back and hurried past. 

She didn’t see him again until she stepped into the practice room to work on her shield charm.

He was actually alone for the first time she’d ever seen, and was shooting jinx after jinx at a dummy. It was laying on its side and half shredded. He was muttering to himself between spells.

Isobel coughed, and he spun around, wand raised. Seeing her, he dropped his arm and forced a bored sneer onto his face. “What do you want, Crawford?”

She arched her eyebrows at his acidic tone. “I wanted to practice.” She waved her hand vaguely at the shredded dummy.

“Well – I was here  _ first _ ,” he snapped. “Go away.”

“Where are Crabb and Goyle?”

“They were annoying me.”

“You know – the snitch – it was totally impossible to see from where you were. I think you all played a really good game – and those new brooms  _ are _ something.”

His eyes narrowed. “Sod off.”

She shrugged, and suddenly reminded of her conversation with Luna a week ago, fought a sudden urge to laugh at the image in her mind of the leaf flying away into the rain and Luna’s face.

“Alright then.” Her mouth twitched into a smile. “Enjoy yourself.”

***

The next morning, they woke up to news that traveled like a tidal wave through the school: a student was petrified at some point last evening. A first-year muggle born in Gryffindor. Paranoia quickly followed – bringing a thriving commerce in amulets, fake protective potions, and defensive charms. 

In the Slytherin common room, Malfoy recovered completely from his sulk, and was bragging about his father. In potions, the attitude was tense and somber. The place where Colin Creevey usually worked beside Ginny Weasley was excruciatingly empty. 

Ginny, now alone, looked ill and distracted. Her usually combatant attitude in the class had vanished. Now she kept her head down and worked – and managed to produce potions almost as badly done as Creavy.

Botkins, no longer supported by his red-haired counterpart, became more belligerent. When Professor Snape made a snide comment about Ginny filling the important role of class disaster left open by Creevy's absence, Botkins retaliated by dropping an extra heaping handful of boomslang skin into the cauldron of the nearest Slytherin. 

He lost 50 points from Gryffindor, to mutinous mutterings from his housemates.

Under strict orders from Professor Snape, Malfoy mostly succeeded in keeping his mouth shut on the subject in public, other than the occasional wolfish grin at muggleborn first years at meals.

The upshot was that, contrary to Professor Snape's warning on Halloween, much of Hufflepuff decided that the most likely candidate was Harry Potter after all, even if he had been in the infirmary when Creavy was found, growing bones back after Lockhart’s  _ repair _ to Potter’s arm after the quidditch match.

Miles Bletchley, Slytherin’s keeper, had watched from the back of the group around Potter, and saw his arm go limp.

“Turned right into a soft noodle, it did,” he’d said, describing the incident. “A second after it happened, Potter looked like he was about to die of fright – looking down at his arm just laying there.” It had produced the desired laughter over lunch.

A wave of suspicious eyes turned their way at the sound from the other tables. Flint elbowed Bletchley, and hissed at them all to hush. Keep their heads down and don’t look happy about it, Professor Snape had said. 

Isobel cast a quick glance up at the head table. He was watching them with his sharp eyes from behind his hair. Beside him, poor Professor Sprout was once again enduring the stream of verbiage from Lockhart. He was probably going on about how he’d be able to put Creavy to rights in a moment – if only they’d give him half a chance.

For her part, Isobel had felt a growing tightness down in her belly as she listened to her house buzz around her with a severe nonchalance about what had happened to Creavy, and the threat hanging over the school.

_ They  _ were all pure or half-bloods, Pansy Parkinson had pointed out in a whisper over breakfast. Whoever was doing it was no threat to them. “I mean,” she’d said with nasty smile. “It’s  _ Slytherin’s _ heir.”

The others had shrugged, and Malfoy had beamed at her. Now they were more interested in the newest Lockhart story about Potter than Creevy's fate.

She lifted a fork of pudding to her mouth, but realizing she wasn’t hungry, pushed her plate away, and stood, grabbing her bag.

Piers glanced up. “Where are you off to?”

She shrugged. “Thought I’d do some work on the Transfiguration essay before DADA.”

He nodded distractedly. “What, not hungry?”

She shook her head and hurried away. 

The library was mostly deserted, and she plopped herself down, pulled a book out of her bag, carefully avoided looking at the history book she’d borrowed two months ago, and set to work, trying to focus all her energy and attention on the parchment in front of her. And she succeeded for about ten minutes.

She jumped when Botkins slammed a massive volume onto the desk beside her. It was open. “Something here you might appreciate,  _ Crawford _ ,” he hissed through a saccharin smile.


	9. The Tale of Gideon Crawford

The book was a bound collection of editions of _ The Daily Prophet _, Isobel saw at a glance. Being a wizard newspaper, all pictures moved. 

But what drew Isobel's eyes first was the headline Botkins had opened the book to.

_ “Dangerous Death Eater Gideon Crawford IV Sentenced to Azkaban.” _

Below, a man she recognized from pictures held a number card. His lips twisted in a sardonic smile. The picture was black and white, but she knew from other pictures that his eyes were ice blue and his light hair was golden blond.

The subhead read: “Exclusive: the shocking details of his arrest.”

Botkins grinned nastily and walked away, leaving the book sitting there.

Horror and a desperate curiosity twisting around in her stomach, Isobel pulled the volume toward her, and began to read:

_London, the Ministry of Magic – Today, the Council of Magical Law sentenced Gideon Francis Crawford IV, 25, to Azkaban for the duration of his natural life._

_Crawford was smiling and unrepentant, as Bartimus Crouch read out the verdict sentence, according to witnesses._

_“The blighter didn’t even have the courtesy to even look bothered by it,” said Alfred Feathertree, a member of the council. “But he’d just flippantly confessed to it all a moment before – just horrifying – he actually laughed – can you imagine it. Thank goodness he’s been locked away.”_

_Crawford confessed to his willing membership in the Death Eaters, his support of He Who Must Not Be Named, miscellaneous gross misuse of magic, and his double use of an Unforgivable Curse during his arrest, including all the following details of the arrest, as supplied by Andrianna Burk, official spokesman for the Auror office._

_According to Burk, Crawford was cornered on 14 April, at his ancestral estate of St. Mary’s. With him was Fiona Callaghan, whom he’d enchanted and coerced to be with him, and a two-month-old child he fathered with Callaghan._

_Crawford, knowing Aurors Thomas Botkins and Patrick Flanigan were closing in, set several magical traps around the building, then forced Callaghan out onto a balcony with him to lure them in. When they were in sight, he turned his wand on the woman, performing the Cruciatus Curse._

_Botkins and Flanigan rushed to help her and stop Crawford when they were caught in his trap and immobilized – or nearly so. Botkins was able to send out a distress signal._

_Realizing what he’d done, Crawford turned his wand on Botkins, hitting him with an unidentified curse that left deep, and eventually fatal, gashes across his body. Leaving him to bleed out on the ground, he turned on Flanigan with his second use of the Cruatus Curse._

_Three Aurors who were in the area received Botkins’ distress signal and arrived at that moment. Before Crawford could shift from torturing Flanigan, they hit him with several stunning spells. _

_Botkins was rushed to St. Mungo's, but not knowing what curse had caused the damage, they were unable to stop the bleeding in time, and Botkins died an hour later, leaving his infant son an orphan, as Botkins’ wife was murdered by Death Eaters last year._

_Flanigan, Callaghan, and her child were also taken to St. Mungo's, where Callaghan is still undergoing treatment for her ordeal. The doctors refuse to speak about her condition, but a source at the hospital, speaking under strict anonymity, said she’s been hysterical and insisting on several different versions of what happened._

_“It’s normal for a person who’s been through a trauma to try and reorder the facts in a way that’s easiest to take,” the source said. “I think that’s what she’s trying to do.”_

_Flanigan was released from the hospital to rest at home after an overnight stay. He appeared today to give testimony at Crawford’s trial._

_When Crawford was brought this morning to the Ministry of Magic from Azkaban, he appeared disheveled and unshaven, but those who saw him said his face was devoid of the normal signs of despair that marks most of those who inhabit that place for any time._

_Feathertree said Crawford’s lack of remorse or fear over his fate is a confirmation of his complete evil._

_“It’s unnatural – the way he glibly agreed to have tortured and controlled that poor woman,” Feathertree said. “His laugh gave me chills. And then he made a joke! A joke – imagine it. But at least justice has been done, and he’s got plenty of time to find some regrets.”_

_Crawford was immediately returned to Azkaban, where he will be placed in the high security wing with other priority Death Eaters._

Isobel’s stomach clenched hard, and she worried that she might be sick. That wasn’t something Madam Pince was likely to overlook, so she took several deep breaths.

It’s not like it was new. She’d heard the Ministry of Magic’s version from Brid last year. But the details. And Brid never said that dad confessed to it all. And there were witnesses. Lots, if you counted all the witches and wizards at the trial.

She glared angrily into the eyes of the Gideon Crawford in the picture. He seemed almost pleased with himself. Like when Professor Snape was really horrid to one of the Gryffindors, and they did something back, which gave him an excuse to give out detention or subtract house points.

She glanced back at the quote about her mum in the hospital. “try and reorder the facts ... easiest to take.” Something like fear was making her feel very strange. For the first time, she found herself asking if her mum _ had _ actually gotten it right.

One thing bugged her though. The paper didn’t seem to know or care that dad _ had _ married mum. He’d done it properly – with a muggle priest in the little parish down the road from mum’s parents. They had a wedding certificate – grandmum had it in a file. And now, everyone called her mum Crawford, even in the wizarding world.

Mostly her thoughts were too confused and upset to really think at all. She began to flip through the pages, looking for more about her father or his case. She stopped briefly on an obituary for Thomas Botkins, Auror and member of the Order of Merlin, first class.

The picture under the headline showed him grinning widely as he received the Order of Merlin. He was shaking hands with the Minister of Magic and waving. 

According to the obituary, he’d graduated with top N.E.W.T.S. from Hogwarts six years before his death, where he’d been a Gryffindor prefect and a beater on the house quidditch team. Thomas married Jessamine Bones four years later. 

_On 2 Dec., 1981, Thomas was awarded the Order of Merlin for facing six Death Eaters alone to protect a family of muggles a week earlier. He held them off until backup arrived. Unfortunately, one Death Eater, the infamous Bellatrix Lestronge, escaped and in a vindictive act of retribution, on 5 Jan., 1982, brutally murdered his wife Jessamine, a mere three days after she’d born their only child, Andrew. _

_After Jessamine’s death, Thomas entrusted his infant son Andrew to his parents and devoted his life and soul to tracking down Lestrange and those like her. On Wednesday, 14 April, he cornered a known associate of her’s – Gideon Crawford._

_Again, Thomas placed the welfare of the muggle-born witch Crawford was holding hostage over his own as he rushed to protect her, and was caught in a devious trap. Crawford, using an unknown curse, dealt him a fatal blow, then left him to die as he turned his wand on Thomas’s partner and close friend, Patrick Flanigan._

_But dying as he’d lived, his last act was to signal a group of Aurors nearby for help, who were able to capture Crawford and save the lives of the muggle woman and his friend Patrick._

_Thomas is survived by his parents, Theodore and Pippa Botkins, and his three-month-old son, Andrew. A memorial will be held at 3 p.m. on Saturday, 24 April, at Theodore and Pippa Botkins’ home. _

“Andrew,” Isobel whispered, staring at names printed on the yellowed paper.

She’d recognized the name – she’d bristled when she’d first heard it, based on what her mother had told Brid, but she’d never considered that he could actually be his orphaned son.

She bit her lip. 

Botkins and Flanigan had always been the villains in the story – but – but – had they actually fought to save her mum? 

_“...dying as he’d lived…the Order of Merlin, first class…”_

In the picture, he didn’t look evil at all. He looked young and eager. He was grinning. 

She leaned back. Her stomach had settled into something much worse. Now she’d just gone numb. 

She sat like that, flipping the pages aimlessly as the minutes trickled passed in the empty library, her mind just as empty.

It was Piers who roused her, as he slumped breathlessly into a chair next to her. “There you are,” he hissed in a combination of whisper and explanation. “I was worried when you didn’t turn up for DADA!”

She looked up and blinked. “I – I missed class?”

He shrugged and grinned. “Don’t worry – it’s not like you missed anything. Lockhart read about his vampire adventures today.”

She nodded, not returning his grin. His own faltered.

“You okay?”

She shrugged, and he glanced over at her almost empty parchment sitting beside her transfiguration book. “What did you do in here all day?”

“Huh?”

He narrowed his eyes and leaned to look at the book in front of her. “Transfiguration – you were going to work on the essay – remember?”

“Oh, yeah.”

He stared at her, and she stared forward, silently wishing he’d leave. He reached over and pulled the book to himself, flipping the cover over. “The Daily Prophet, April 1982. What – ?”

He flipped through the pages, then stopped. “Oooh.”

The headline in front of him read: “_ Wanted Death Eater Gideon Crawford in custody. _”

She didn’t respond, but her jaw clenched. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“But – you knew all this stuff – didn’t you? I mean – your feud with Botkins.”

She shrugged, then tried to speak again, but she seemed to have lost control of the muscles in her face, so she clenched her jaw and focused on a spot on the shelf above her. She read the titles out in her mind. _ Forks – a Magical or Muggle Discovery? _ By Weatha Walburg. _ Modern Muggle family structure, a case study _ , by Berty Watters. _ Muggle for a Day, _ by Francisca Watting.

Piers, resting his elbows on the desk, leaned over so she couldn’t avoid his worried, gray eyes. “Hey.”

She pulled away and grabbed her books and parchment. “Bug off,” she hissed, and fled.

She’d wandered around empty corridors, avoiding any sounds of footsteps for an hour, slipping into passages or empty classrooms, trying not to think at all.

But it was inevitable she’d meet someone. Worse, it was Peeves.

He’d been floating in a reclining position, his eyes closed, when she’d blundered into him. He’d shot up at once, hooting with joy.

“What’s this? An ickle first year out of class?” He zoomed up to her. “A Slytherin! What are you doing alone? Releasing a nasty evil monster?”

“No,” she hissed. “Go away you horrible thing.”

His eyebrows shot up in mock surprise. “I’m crushed. Insulted.” He grinned wickedly. “How else can I repay but – FIRST YEAR OUT OF CLASS! FIRST YEAR SLYTHERIN OUT OF CLASS!”

She turned and blindly ran. She could hear doors opening behind her. 

“THAT WAY – SHE WENT THAT WAY!”

_ Bloody hell, _ she thought, and threw herself into a disused room that was full of stacks of desks. Without thinking, she raised her wand to the keyhole and whispered “ _ Colloportus _.” 

She didn’t even think about what she was doing, only that she desperately needed to be alone. She needed that door to lock. And miraculously, on cue, it did. 

Not even noticing her success, she found a little hole left between two towers of desks, curled up in them and let herself cry.

It was one of those cries that happen without any real idea of what she was crying about, and she was too confused inside to even ask. She just gave into it. 

The worst thing about that kind of a cry is eventually, it has to stop, but without feeling any better. Just tired, headachy, and red and blotchy. She leaned back against the wall, looking blankly at the door. Once, the handle had jiggled, and she’d covered her mouth with her hands, but the person had moved on. Then the hall had filled with voices, but they too had wandered away to other parts.

Actually, all she felt now was a little guilty for snapping at Piers again – he had just wanted to help. All the other things she’d been feeling seemed to have settled back down somewhere. Which was perfectly fine, as she’d no idea what to do with it all.

Her mum.

Her dad.

Thomas Botkins.

She tried a smile, and it mostly came out right.

And she’d done the locking spell. Just like Travers said – she hadn't been thinking about all the little steps and annunciation and wand movement. She’d just, from the very depths of her soul, needed it to lock. 

She pushed up and stretched. 

She pointed her wand at a scrap of paper on the floor, and focusing on what she was commanding it to do, whispered the floating charm. It twitched, then rose into the air. 

She waved her wand up and down, and it followed. Grinning, she lowered the wand, and it floated back to the floor. Then the headache hit again, and she winced.

Dinner would be soon, but she wasn’t about to step out of the room until her face had completely returned to normal. So sitting on the floor again, she pulled out her Transfiguration essay again, and settled down to finish.

***

She next saw Peirs when she caught up with the group of Slytherins heading for dinner. He saw her, and frowned.

“Where were you? You missed Charms – we were tested on _ Leviosa. _”

She shrugged, feeling grumpy.

_ → Here the draft ends. _

_ I may finish this one of these days. In the meantime, my girl has some rough times coming, which include Brid begging her to help as MI-5 arrest Emmet O'Dwyer for his links to the IRA, and use him to force Brid into becoming an informant. But she can’t do anything magical with the trace, other than smuggle a potion home… _

_ … Meanwhile, when Cassie finishes her time training, she’s denied a job at St. Mungo’s, for her Death Eater connections. After the Quirrell, Chamber, and Azkaban incidents, she’s informed that there’s just not a place for her here. But fortunately, her family have connections to the Bulgarian National Quidditch team, and they’re in need of a new medic. Fortunately for both sisters, they’ll send her with their star player to make sure he stays in top shape… _


End file.
